Lemon Hart: a real rum story

Toby Ash, The Dabbler’s Most South-Westerly Tip of England Correspondent, discovers the local origins of an iconic drinks brand whilst walking the back streets of Penzance. A few months ago, as I walked through the maze of back alleys in east Penzance, I stumbled across a locked wooden gate, behind which ... Read More...

Tattoo too far

What will our grandchildren think of this weird custom? Earlier this week the directors of the Bayreuth Festival got into a kerfuffle with the Russian bass-baritone Yevgeny Nikitin when a German TV show revealed that he has a swastika tattoo on one of his man-boobs. This was a problem because Nikitin ... Read More...

Rose of Alabamy – A Mountaineer’s Tale

Malty recalls an eventful night in the Scottish Highlands... The single track road running through Glen Torridon boasts some of the most majestic scenery in Britain, on its northern side and stretching the entire length of the glen are Beinn Eighe, home to numerous eagles, and Liathach the grey one, not ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary – Ceremony

Tuesday, 10am. Clacket Lane motorway services, on the anti-clockwise M25. I purchased from the Costa coffee shop my ‘small’ (i.e. least gigantic) americano-with-milk and settled at the unoccupied table amidst other unoccupied tables that was at the optimum equidistant point from the few occupied tables. Thus the exciting life of ... Read More...

We are the Mods

In honour of Mod cyclist Bradley Wiggins, we go back to the sixties... Our lugubrious new bicycling hero Bradley Wiggins (above, with Paul Weller and designer Paul Smith) is an interesting character for a number of reasons, not least his self-identification as a Mod, with the haircut to prove it. The ... Read More...

Toying with time

When I typed ‘retro games’ into my browser I was a little surprised at the result. The sites featured were the sort selling ‘retro video games and classic retro gaming’. Atari, Commodore, Ninetendo, Sega, Sinclair and Playstation were not exactly the names I’d anticipated. So I typed in ‘retro toys’ ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary – Fortuna’s rock

Last weekend I was back in the Cotswold village I’ve recently given up calling home (I’m now resigned to being a Londoner – it’s bringing little Londoners into the world that does it). I was impressed once again with how much booze the residents manage to put away. I asked ... Read More...

Fifty Shades Of Bruce

Nige noted the other day that E L James, in That Book, signals a character's grasp of High Culture by inserting into the text mini-lectures to demonstrate his erudition. This seems to me a splendid narrative technique. If only a novelist of the calibre of Steve Bruce were to deploy ... Read More...

Sporting Life

Slang loves sport, but Mr Slang does not. As he prepares to flee the Olympic-blighted capital, Jonathon fires a parting shot... ‘The Country Squire New Mounted’ The Country Squire to London came, And left behind his dogs and game; Yet finer sport he has in view, And hunts the hare and coney too. T. Rowlandson Pretty ... Read More...