Ben Atherton is a Brisbane-based journalist, dad, misty-eyed expat and sometime blogger on books and bookmen at Biblioparrot. Back in the good old days, when I was trying to get my first job on newspapers, a standard interview question was: "Why do you want to become a journalist?". The standard answer ... Read More...
Month: July 2011
'Join the accusations, save the bleeding nation, get it off your shoulders, blame it on the Stones,' urged Kris Kristoffersen in 1970.... …but what exactly should we blame on the Rolling Stones? Satanic grooviness, certainly… … because Sympathy for the Devil was the song on which the entire ‘Baggy’ pop movement of ... Read More...
A Horlicks advertisement from the original brochure for the Festival of Britain in 1951. (Double click on the picture to read the text). In another half minute, John and Elizabeth will be seated in these two chairs, relaxing at last after a strenuous day. This has been their home ever since ... Read More...
Nige finds two extraordinary collectors within the pages of that lepidopterist's Bible, The Aurelian Legacy: British Butterflies and Their Collectors ... Like Gaul, The Aurelian Legacy is divided into three parts - a history of the British butterfly fancy, a biographical dictionary of notable butterfly men and women, and essays on some of ... Read More...
Before plunging into the ocean, snorkelled and flippered or, as it may be, encased in full body diving gear, it is critically important that you are aware of the actual size of the innumerable life forms that teem within the vasty deep. If you have read Pebblehead’s bestselling paperback The ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his 'Heroes of Slang' series... The essence of ’arry, he sez, is high sperrits. That ain't so fur out. I'm ‘Fiz’ not four ’arf, my dear feller. Flare-up is my motter, no doubt. Carn’t set in a corner canoodling, and do the Q. T. day and night. My mug, mate, was made ... Read More...
Noseybonk is away this week, conducting an interview with non-plagiarising columnist Johann Hari for a special piece next week. In his stead, guest society correspondent Jasper Huddlestone-Huddlestone picks his favourite wines to go with cocaine. It was during one of my periodic binges when I realised that my little brother, Tobias, had ... Read More...
Want to get some free books? Fancy yourself as a reviewer? ‘Walk the Lines’ is author Mark Mason's account of walking the whole London Underground system overground (on nearest streets rather than the tracks themselves, obviously, which would have been both pointless and suicidal). As a lifelong fan of London, Mason embarked ... Read More...
Author Rupert Thomson, whose memoir This Party's Got to Stop was our most recent Book Club choice, provides an exclusive Q&A for The Dabbler... Was This Party's Got to Stop a book that you had to write, for reasons of catharsis perhaps? How long had you been 'writing it' in your ... Read More...
Looks like I've stumped you at last with my uber-fiendish quiz. Frankly I've given enough clues now... if you give up, click continue. 15281 ... Read More...
