Merry Christmas MashUp

I have just read Jonathon Green's fascinating post from earlier in the week, having been out very late at a party. What I write may not make too much sense, so I'm sticking mainly to photographs today. My suggestion is that guns should never be used for shooting again, but ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary: Chalk and Cheese

When I was a young lad, just beginning to appreciate the coarser things in life, one of the characters at the local rugby club was a Scotsman who, to a peculiar degree, took on the persona of a Frenchman: Gitanes, vin rouge, Citroen DS, beret. Very much a Francophile, as ... Read More...

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

What is that heavenly sound? Frank reveals all... Hark! The herald angels sing! The herald angels are singing the song of Stakhanov, the heroic worker. The herald angels are legion, but there are only two Stakhanovs. That’s right, two. One Stakhanov is busy at the forge, just like Felix Randal the ... Read More...

My Gun Is Quick

Freud is credited with being the first to state what now seems so obvious: gun = penis. Especially if the animate appendage is in some way inadequate... This is my rifle, this is my gun. One is for fighting, one is for fun. US Military Parade-ground chant (trad.) Slang lacks the empathy gene. And ... Read More...

Dwile Flonking at the Cotswold Olimpicks

Britain's triumphant Olympic year is drawing to an end - but will it still be remembered in 400 years? And is it time to reinstate the noble sport of dwile flonking in time for Rio?.. Few realise that the first Olympic revival took place not in the 19th century, but exactly ... Read More...

And to you your wassail too…

Christmas is but one week away, and where would a good dabbler be without a spot of wassailing. Before we set off wassailing incorrectly, we thought it prudent to consult Epicurean Luke Honey from The Greasy Spoon Blog to find out what wassailing actually is... Here we come a-wassailing Among the leaves ... Read More...

Doodling with Currency at Christmas

If the summer holiday is the 'silly season', the Christmas break surely has to be the 'shopping season': A celebration of something sacred transformed into a festival of greed and degenerate gift-grabbing. Whilst out battling Christmas shoppers the other day, I was just about to pay for yet more wrapping paper, ... Read More...

Sofas vs Tables

How far can you travel on a sofa? I’ve been working on and off for a number of years in the world of sofas, God forgive me. So I was surprised I hadn’t heard of the “sofa poem by Seamus Heaney” that a colleague referred to the other day. She was ... Read More...