Bonne Année

So The Dabbler has made it through another 366 days, with at least one and often two original posts on the vast majority of them. We’ll never be the most popular UK culture blog (we leave it to our rivals, naming no names like, say, Sabotage Times, to chase after ... Read More...

Festive Folkiness

Tired of Wizzard and Cliff? Here’s some alternative festive fare…. Scientific studies show that nobody can bear to listen to any of the standard Christmas pop hits (Slade, Band Aid etc) after 9am on Boxing Day. But here we are, still in bloody Christmas, so what to do on a musical ... Read More...

Old Key’s Almanacke

We are overjoyed once again to have been granted permission to publish Old Key's Almanacke, a series of unerringly accurate predictions for the coming twelvemonth... January : Eric Pickles stages a coup and becomes the first Supreme Overlord of the British Isles. February : Yoko Ono celebrates her eightieth birthday by ushering ... Read More...

The 12 Days of Christmas Slang

After reading this post, singing about a partridge in a pear tree will never be quite the same again... Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree! So they do sing. ... Read More...

Ghosts of Christmas

As is now a Dabbler tradition, here's Brit's Christmas poem... Ghosts of Christmas Christmas, like revenge or copulation, Is mostly fun in the anticipation. It’s weeks, it’s days, and now it’s here, it’s here! And now it’s gone, in a haze of port and beer, And leaves you wondering where the hell it went. Children learn this ... Read More...

Dabblers at Christmas

Merry Christmas to all our readers! In lieu of a card, here are some Christmas memories from the Dabbler Editorial staff, plus some lovely music... Gaw - Arguments About War Some of my fondest Christmas memories are of the arguments (and I don’t mean rows). There was a golden period for arguing: two ... Read More...

Adventum

An early Christmas present, from Mahlerman... Working in and around Notre Dame (Paris) from the middle 12th Century were a group of composers who came to be known as the Notre Dame School of Polyphony - polyphony being, briefly, a style of composition employing two, or more, simultaneous but relatively independent ... Read More...