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. Today Jonathon concludes his epic survey of the Seven Deadly Sins of Slang with a lascivious ... Read More...
Month: April 2011
The Dabblers visit Sipsmith, makers of artisanal gin and vodka... In a shed in a residential road in Hammersmith, two thirtysomething former public schoolboys are busy at work under the shadow of a colossal copper machine. They are making London gin. Well, not actually physically making gin themselves – a distilling ... Read More...
Historian Juliet Gardiner is one of the leading commenters on British social history. Her book The Thirties: An Intimate History - which has recently been released in paperback - was described by The Telegraph as "a quite outstanding work of social history" for "the depth of its research, the quality of ... Read More...
On a wet afternoon in June 1909, Tottenham Hotspur played Everton in front of 8,000 spectators. One of the Spurs players on show was Walter Tull. He was black, and the abuse he'd suffered from hostile audiences had appalled the British press, but today he would score one of his ... Read More...
I was in my local fishmonger's on the weekend, Steve Hatt on the Essex Road. Whilst I was waiting to be served I took a look at their list of orders for collection on the day. It was mostly fashionable seafood for smart local restaurants - I noticed Ottolenghi were ... Read More...
I recently wrote a magazine article on how the last 50 years of progress haven't been particularly spectacular. A friend who has actually been around for the last 50 years and involved in the development of new technologies in that period of time recommended I read this book - Toward ... Read More...
In an occasional series Daniel Kalder examines the literary endeavours of the world's dictators. This week we remember the lavishly browed and latterly decrepit Leonid Brezhnev, the author of the Soviet Private Ryan. Master of the USSR in his lifetime, Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) is best remembered today for his exceedingly hairy eyebrows ... Read More...
Jason Webster is the author of five books on Spain, including Duende, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Or the Bull Kills You is the first in a series of detective novels involving Chief Inspector Max Cámara of the Spanish National Police. The second novel, Some Other Body ... Read More...
Don't forget the deadline for entering our Dabbler Book Club ballot to win a free copy of Simon Winder's Germania is noon tomorrow (Monday). All you have to do is join the Club by filling in the form here, then send an email to editorial@thedabbler.co.uk asking to enter the ballot. We'll let ... Read More...
In a couple of years’ time I am planning to swap the damp greyness of January in Britain for the warmth and sunshine of the Sahara to attend the annual Festival in the Desert just south of Timbuktu in the landlocked west African state of Mali. Mali may be economically impoverished, ... Read More...
