I am currently hard at work on a forthcoming blockbuster entitled The Hooting Yard Bumper Anthology of Anecdotes ‘n’ Apocrypha Regarding Breakfast, Arranged Alphabetically. Thus far I have chosen one piece for inclusion, but I am in a bit of a quandary whether to file it under D for De ... Read More...
Month: February 2011
Jonathon Green - visit his website here - is the English language's leading lexicographer of slang. His Green's Dictionary of Slang is quite simply the most comprehensive and authorative work on slang ever published. Having last week looked at slang's attitide to women and nagging, he this week turns the ... Read More...
[The story so far… Alain de Botton has failed to persuade the Adult Contemporary sing-songwriters to build him his own international airport. Ed Balls is trying to 'squash' all of his rivals but particularly Ed Milliband. Meanwhile, Chakrabati and Bidisha, chief minions of sinister mirror-licking mastermind Julian Assange, have captured elusive poet ... Read More...
In our occasional feature we invite guests to select the six cultural links that might sustain them if, by some mischance, they were forced to spend eternity in a succession of airport departure lounges with only an iPad or similar device for company. Today's voyager is The Wartime Housewife, who dispenses ... Read More...
Having recently demolished some of the most popular football myths, James Hamilton begins another three-part series for our Row Z feature, this time looking at death and violence in Victorian and Edwardian football. The first part reveals that football fan violence was far from an invention of the Thatcher years... It’s ... Read More...
In the wake of its star, Natalie Portman, winning the BAFTA for best actress, Rosie Bell sorts the melodrama from the magic in Black Swan. This clip is my favourite piece of Black Swan, the melodrama that‘s doing the rounds at the moment. When I saw it one part of my mind ... Read More...
Earlier we asked the 11th RB Quiz question, namely: What links the chilly destination of a fictional submarine on a rescue mission, a laughably strange halal meat permitted by some islamic sects, an unlucky participant of the mutiny on The Grampus, and The Murders in the Rue Morgue? The winner was Ian ... Read More...
Here's this week's devilishly fiendish Round Blogworld Quiz question (see the previous ones and their solutions here). As usual, find the link between these cryptic clues. A point for each item you get, and an imaginary cream bun of regal proportions if you get them all. If you get the ... Read More...
I recently came across these engaging photos of Victorian Spitalfields. They have bundles of charm and interest. What struck me in particular (apart from the newshoarding announcing the sinking of the Titanic in the final one) was the number of children on the streets and how smartly dressed they seemed (though ... Read More...
As well as being the theatre critic for the Evening Standard and an occasional television presenter, Henry Hitchings is one of the leading authors on language and cultural history. His book The Secret Life of Words won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and his other acclaimed works include Who’s Afraid ... Read More...