Jonathon Green gives us a slang historian's guide to a street in Finsbury... Now farewell to St. Giles That standeth in the Fields And Farewel to Turnbal strete For that no comfort yeeldes In Whitecross street and Golden Lane Do strapping lasses dwell And so there do in every street Twixt that and Clerkenwell At Cowcross and at Smithfield I have ... Read More...
Month: June 2011
A little while ago I came across the above telescope, which enables the public to enjoy views across the Clifton Suspension Bridge, but which more importantly boasts this heartbreaking poem: Point the telescope & insert coin, Turn and fully return knob. Observe the View and at night the Moon. Don’t look at the Sun. ... Read More...
As advertised here, thanks to Granta we had two copies of Elif Batuman's brilliant book The Possessed to give away to members of the Dabbler Book Club. The winners, selected at random, are: Colin Faulkner of Wellingborough; and Natasha Gonsalves from London. Congratulations to them – we’ll be in touch and Granta will be posting you the books ... Read More...
Sunday June 19th is Father’s Day. We’ve asked our style columnist, Susan Muncey from online curiosity shop ShopCurious, to suggest some uniquely retroprogressive gifts. As Dabblers are a highly cultured bunch, with a wide variety of interests, I’ve tried to reflect this in an eclectic array of gifts for Father’s Day:The ... Read More...
Our fascination with the Gurkhas continues: A Gurkha soldier who single-handedly defeated more than 30 Taliban fighters has been awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross by the Queen... In total he fired off 250 general purpose machine gun rounds, 180 SA80 rounds, six phosphorous grenades, six normal grenades, five underslung grenade launcher rounds and ... Read More...
Congrats to Jonathan Law this week who got the main connection. Click continue for the full solution. 13937 ... 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...
This month's Dabbler Book Club selection was Tim Binding's The Champion. Here, Dabblers Brit and Toby Ash provide contrasting reviews after which Book Club member Audrey provides a tie-breaker... Brit: Money stinks, is the message Tim Binding first appears to want to convey in The Champion. Literally so in this passage. I've come to make ... Read More...
Every month we award a bottle of Glengoyne 10 year old single malt - the finest whisky available to humanity - to a commenter... One of the founding principles of Dabblerism is the idea that an article about absolutely anything - from moths to trodden paths through wastegrounds - can be ... Read More...
In a new occasional series, Dabblers select those poems that manage to hit a very particular spot, and do it better than anything else. First, Gaw gets carried away by a bit of seasonal sunshine. I find the warm days of early summer can sometimes impart a tremendous feeling of well-being: ... Read More...
