Rather than being led to despair though joblessness, apparently we should be uplifted by the fact that we’re all works of art, designed by God. I wonder what graduates embarking on their search for employment would make of yesterday’s BBC Radio 4 Thought for the Day from Rt Rev Lord ... Read More...
Month: June 2011
This magnificent picture of a Dabbler Glencairn whisky glass has been sent in by Hey Skipper, head (and indeed, sole member) of the Alaskan branch of the League of Dabblers. It was taken in Eagle River, AK, specifically "looking up the Eagle River valley, from a vantage point just north of ... Read More...
The Dabbler is pleased to introduce a new weekly column for players of Spite (known as Lantern Jaw in some circles). Frank Key kicks off with a look at an all-too-common tactical impasse… What is the best defence when your opponent tags the cicely courtneidges with baling? The received wisdom used ... Read More...
After trawling Turnmill Street, Jonathon 'Mr Slang' Green continues his slang tour of London by seeking out Alsatia... It’s gone: Water Lane’s gone, not even the name. Mitre Lane’s gone, buried beneath some pile of glass. Ram Alley’s called Hare Court and shelters My Learned Friends. Whitefriars Street, now irony runs ... Read More...
Is Evan Davis the most modest man in Britain? In a recent Sunday newspaper Q&A he was asked whether he was too 'lightweight' to present the Today programme. His answer: I'm keen not to lose the things that made people say I was lightweight, but I'm also keen not to be seen ... Read More...
Here's a nice piece by Joe Moran on mowing lawns. Not that anyone's been able to do much mowing recently - I'd probably have to have resort to a machete to get near our patch of grass, subsumed as it is by sub-tropical undergrowth. Good growing weather, see. Anyhow, Mr Moran thinks ... Read More...
It’s been 15 years since Jamie Oliver slid down a spiral banister and into our lives, and whilst he remains the same old scooter riding Peter Pan, decked out in his Kevin the Teenager garb, Jamie PLC has been busy carving out a serious business empire - what with the ... Read More...
The selection of apples available in Waitrose last week looked like this: There were plenty of varieties to choose from, but not one of them had been grown in the UK. And why aren't there any simple fold-up picnic chairs in either of my two local two branches of Homebase, or in ... Read More...
After years – no, decades – of meaning to (and at least once beginning to), I finally got round to reading Elizabeth Bowen's The Death of the Heart (available for 1p here). Though it has the ultimately elating quality of all really good art, it is a bleak and dejecting ... Read More...
It was curiosity that led me to Nameless. I kept wondering: what lies beyond my local HEB, that vast supercenter of consumerism where I buy my groceries? The road seemed to lead nowhere, disappearing abruptly after a gas station and a chemist’s, devoured by the sky. But there had to ... Read More...
