It'll soon be time to start stocking up on the Christmas booze. Here's The Dabbler's wine expert Henry Jeffreys on good ordinary claret... What thing is the most evocative of Christmas? For some it’s the sound of carol singing, for others it’s the unwrapping of presents, for me it’s the sediment ... Read More...

This week Frank conducts an in-depth investigation into the numerous troubling implications of saying boo to a goose... There is a common phrase, often used when one wishes to disparage someone as a timid milksop. We all come across timid milksops from time to time, and though in the spirit of ... Read More...

Jonathon Green introduces the great slang lexicographer, spiritualist and possible pornographer, John Stephen Farmer... In 1890, just as what was still known as the New English Dictionary was getting properly into its stride in Oxford, there was published the first of the seven volumes of what could reasonably be called its ... Read More...

Bryan Appleyard has published a new book, and The Dabbler will be marking the occasion in suitable style. We have two signed copies of The Brain is Wider Than the Sky to give away (see below) and we also have an exclusive Q&A coming up. But first, Brit reviews the book, and ... Read More...

Jon Hotten pays tribute to the writing of controversial cricketer-turned-journalist Peter Roebuck, who died after jumping from a hotel window on Saturday... In front of me is It Never Rains, Peter Roebuck's diary of his 1983 season with Somerset. It's waterstained and foxed, the page edges an uneasy shade of yellow ... Read More...

Continuing our tribute to Clive James , whose new collection A Point of View is The Dabbler Book Club's current monthly choice (sign up here if you're not yet a member), renowned internet hoaxer and comedy writer David Waywell explains why Clive, unlike Johann Hari - whose scathing interview with James forms a crucial chapter in ... Read More...

Having said all there is to say about Skegness, Brit continues his Dabbler tour of England's seaside towns with a visit to Ilfracombe... There’s a nice little new aquarium in the Devon seaside town of Ilfracombe which takes you down, tank by tank, from the source of the Taw to the ... Read More...

Daniel Kalder continues our Record Rehab series with another look at a Bowie relaunch album that failed to fire on all rockets. Originally released in 1993, David Bowie’s Black Tie White Noise was the first of many albums he would drop over the next ten years that would each be hailed ... Read More...

Nige recalls a formative book of verse... There were rather few volumes of poetry on the bookshelves of my childhood home - I remember an early Golden Treasury, a big Victorian edition of Longfellow with grandiose line engravings, an anthology of stirring verse for boys called Lyra Heroica (edited by W.E. ... Read More...

Elberry reviews a new book about how "one of the greatest and most extensive tyrannies in human history was initiated by a very small number of idealist oddbods..." The title is somewhat deceptive: Spies and Commissars (Macmillan, 4 Nov 2011) isn't a non-fiction thriller but rather an account of the West's ... Read More...