There’s one word for corporate umbrellas – naff, but if you’re caught in a downpour, I suppose it’s preferable to have one than get wet. Last week I spotted an umbrella emblazoned with the words ‘Obesity Matters,’ which seemed curiously out of place at Henley Royal Regatta. If you were commissioned ... Read More...
Month: July 2012
The country's leading folly-hunter takes us to the most terrifying tower in Britain, at which his love for pointless buildings nearly terminated... Essex has a number of folly towers of a more traditional sort: all are eclipsed by Bull’s Tower in Pentlow, a rather attractive, unostentatious Victorian brick tower in a ... Read More...
What the scientists won't tell you is that a far more scientifically-important Boson than Higgs's has already been discovered. Frank explains, in layman's terms.. Frankly, I am at a loss to understand all this pother about the Higgs boson. Don't get me wrong, I am not in the least perplexed by ... Read More...
Arrogance, duplicitousness, treachery, sexual corruption and the tip-toeing gait of the flamenco dancer - Jonathon Green continues his series on English linguistic xenophobia with a visit to Spain... Sport being a locked room for which I have not the slightest interest in obtaining a key, my only comment vis-à-vis a recent ... Read More...
Thanks to our friends at Naxos Audiobooks, The Dabbler is serialising Richard Fawkes' award-winning The History of Classical Music, read by Robert Powell... In this first episode, Fawkes goes right back the origins of western classical music with the sound of Gregorian chant, and moves through to the music of Hildegard ... Read More...
In a recent Dabbler post, Nige sang the praises of the River Wandle. But as Jonathan Law explains, the river also had a profound significance for a great Victorian... On a sultry morning in May, Nige celebrated the rebirth of the little River Wandle, now running fresh and clear through Sutton, ... Read More...
There don't seem to be as many of them as in the past - or have they all just been displaced? Mussolini: you might think he was just a blustering fool in a fez, but once upon a time many people took him very seriously. I remember my shock when, aged ... Read More...
A short tale of inexplicable amusement... On the train on the way back from the Derbyshire Dales (my second spiritual home), I noticed a chap sitting diagonally opposite me on the other side of the gangway reading a book. Every few paragraphs, it seemed, he would be overcome by helpless laughter, ... Read More...
Henry provides a very handy catch-all phrase for when discussing wine with people who know more about it than you do... From watching Father Ted, we all know that in a religious discussion you can’t go wrong by saying: ‘that would be an ecumenical matter.’ That way you will always sound like ... Read More...
What Dabbler wouldn't like to get paid for being the government's official Curator of Eccentricities? Worm goes in search of the man who had the best job in Britain... When the Festival of Britain landed on the south bank of the Thames in the summer of 1951, Architect and festival director ... Read More...
