The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary

This week's weird wikipedia article is a rather wooly tale. Mmmm...vegetable lamb; the world's first ready meal? The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asian origin, and was believed to be a plant that could grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by ... Read More...

A Bag Full Of Goo

Could a simple misprint provide the hidden meaning behind one of Sylvia Path's most celebrated poems? Frank reveals all... In her mad poem Daddy, Sylvia Plath makes mention of “a bag full of God”. I have always taken this to be a misprint. If we consider that God is inexplicable and ... Read More...

Slang in Stereotype

What is slang all about? Jonathon muses on stereotypes, in life and in the counter-language that holds up its dark mirror to life... I am in a cab. The cabbie asks what work I do. I explain that I write dictionaries. Dictionaries, that is, of slang. And the cabbie, who stands ... Read More...

The Party of the Damned

Daniel Kalder reflects on the fate of world leaders, from cock of the walk one minute to feather duster the next. All is vanity! Recently I acquired a collection of LIFE magazines from 1971, and was curious to see what was making the news back then. You can probably guess some ... Read More...

My secret booky nookie

Toby Ash confesses to a secret crush... For several years now I have posted quite regularly and have enjoyed participating in the wise, lively and good-natured banter that is daily Dabber life. So I like to think I am part of The Dabbler community; that I am among friends. Right so far? ... Read More...

Alain de Botton International Airport

The terrifying and bewildering Noseybonk Saga originally ran on The Dabbler in 2010 and 2011, and followed a cast of characters including poet Grayson Ellis, revolting hack Rod Lidl, Ed Balls and Julian 'mirror-licker' Assange. In this extract, Anglo-Swiss philosophe Alain de Botton attempts to blackmail Elton John, Art Garfunkel and other singer-songwriters, who ... Read More...

Homemade in America

Unearthed from the archives and now restored with new videos, a post in which Mahlerman treats us to some outstanding Americana... The tradition of playing music at home, all but dead in broken Britain, flourishes still in atomized America and produces, along with the reality-wannabies, a never ending stream of talent ... Read More...

‘Iron’ Mike Malloy

A sobering story that I discovered on Wikipedia this week - You can't help but feel sorry for the plucky irishman in this tale of greed from the 1930's... Michael Malloy, alias Mike the Durable and Iron Mike, was a homeless Irishman living in New York in the 1920s and 30s ... Read More...

My Little Blind Dolly

A Friday story featuring a sightless doll and mindmap guru Tony Buzan... I have a little blind dolly. She is stuffed with straw. I have not named her yet. I have only had her for half an hour. I found her on a patch of waste ground, half an hour ago. I ... Read More...