The day disco nearly died

Squeeze into an old pair of flares, polish the gold medallion, start gyrating those hips, point to the ceiling, now the floor. And big smile. Yes, it's that disco music... On the night of Thursday 12 July 1979, disco was declared dead. More than 60,000 people – ten times the usual ... Read More...

Timely design?

I recently bought a new alarm clock. I was trying to find a traditional style design in standard-issue silver, with a supersized, super-loud bell. Instead I was attracted by one that, though conventional in design, suited my bedroom’s colour scheme. The problem is that, being designer-black (not just the clock-face, ... Read More...

The Red House – Winners!

The lucky winners of the latest Dabbler Book Club selection... Free books. What's not to like? We had a dozen copies of Mark Haddon's latest novel The Red House to give away to Dabbler Book Club members (find out more here). Here's how The Guardian introduced it: The Red House is a closely observed domestic drama that ... Read More...

A Meeting with the Emperor

Nige recalls the day (26 June 2011 to be precise) that he fulfilled a lifelong lepidopterist's dream and first spotted that most elusive of butterflies, a Purple Emperor... I'd had dubious glimpses of this largest and most elusive of our butterflies in the past: high in the treetops, briefly outlined against ... Read More...

The secret nests of the poets

Continuing his tree house theme, Jonathan Law peeks into the arboreal dens of two great poets... To an averagely imaginative child, a tree house surely offers a unique combination of delights. Like other outdoor dens, it is a liminal space where the wild consorts oddly with the domestic and the homely ... Read More...