Brit considers a hit song of utterly bleak existential numbness... Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? must be one of the strangest hit records ever made. Dan Daniels, Guy Lombardo and Tony Bennett all released versions of it, but none managed to match the success of Lee’s recording, which features orchestral ... Read More...
Month: June 2012
Having taken us to pubs inside trees and vice versa, Jonathan visits the wild man of 17th Century Dorset... His house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park, well stocked with deer; and near the house, rabbits for his kitchen; many fish ponds; great stores ... Read More...
If you're back at the office and feeling a little rough after the long Jubilee weekend, take consolation from the Dabbler archives, as editor Gaw recalls a strange night of vodka-fuelled Russian hospitality... A Russian doctor takes the connoisseur's approach to combining vodka and food: Russian men drink vodka shots. They drink vodka with gusto while making ... Read More...
Good cosmic gardening weather - where else but Norbiton? I have missed, once again, the Opening of the Garden of Cosmic Speculation. It is like missing a total eclipse (and so far I have missed all of those): it is a predictable, repeated, attainable happening, but somehow you never go, and ... Read More...
The popularity of Coronation Chicken- like the monarchy- has had its ups and downs over the years. Tom Parker Bowles is not a fan, tweeting to his followers: "Coronation chicken...isn't a dish of celebration, rather punishment for sins of a past life". In retort, Luke Honey of The Greasy Spoon ... Read More...
On this Jubilee weekend, an eclectic musical mix with a royal theme… “I was there at the Coronation” claims Young Tiger in his 1953 Calypso hit and to back up this claim the Trinidadian lists the things he saw at the ceremony in painstaking detail. There’s a pleasing McGonagallishness to the ... Read More...
“Will Britain’s watching millions be let down today by the weather?” asked the Daily Sketch on Tuesday 2nd June, 1953. The Coronation forecast was as follows: WINDS northerly fresh or strong and gusty, some SUNNY intervals. Occasional SHOWERS, heavy at times, perhaps with HAIL and THUNDER here and there. Those camping out ... Read More...
Apparently this: 'every five thousand years the most capable member of a carefully selected alien race must impregnate the Bergs' beloved protoqueen' - doesn't cue up the most bizarre scene in the book. Daniel Kalder reviews an unmissable bande dessinée... There comes a point in every individual’s lifetime when he or she ... Read More...
This really needs no introduction... Hello darkness, my old friend. I've come to talk with you again. I've had a nightmare about a hen. I'd been abandoned, in my pyjamas, in a desolate fen. The hen approached me, clucking. Seldom have I heard so eldritch a cluck from a domestic fowl. ... Read More...