It's about time the evocative stations of the Docklands Light Railway were given a proper showcase, argues Frank... In a cupboard comment a fortnight ago, Worm noted that the Shipping Forecast on BBC radio long ago ceased to be of any real use to boating people. We all know that it ... Read More...

It's holiday time, and Mr Slang is spending his summer constructing interactive timelines of popular terms for the penis. You ain't seen nothing like this before... It’s August. Holiday time, I gather. I had mine in June but no matter. My short-lived tan has faded and my mind is blank. Slang ... Read More...

Rita works her way through a summer's worth of spy novels, and looks for parallels with real-life events... Patriot or Traitor?  That question has lingered over the summer as the Edward Snowden whistle-blower case has played out in front of the world’s media at Moscow Airport. Americans seem to be about ... Read More...

A rather exciting coup for the Dabbler Book Club this month as we have 5 copies of Man Booker longlisted blockbuster The Kills up for grabs... An astonishing landmark novel in four books, The Kills is both a political thriller and a bravura literary performance. The Kills is an epic novel of ... Read More...

Nige remembers a once hugely popular 'comedian'... This month sees the 127th edition of the Scarborough Cricket Festival... Ah the memories...Back in my boyhood days, I'd often be there, with my brother, neatly clad in our little sports jackets, enjoying the beautiful airy seaside ground, the comings and goings, the old ... Read More...

Brit selects four gorgeous, popular operatic melodies... Some opera this week - nothing esoteric, the only gimmick is that these tunes are a quartet, trio, duet and solo aria respectively, and they’re in reverse order of loveliness (according to me, anyway) – hence an 'operatic countdown'. This performance of the Bella Figlia ... Read More...

There are all sorts of unusual wikipedia articles out there. Every Saturday we bring to you some of the more outlandish and obscure for your delectation... Dubbed the chicken-powered nuclear bomb by the press, Blue Peacock was a British nuclear weapon project of the 1950s. The goal of the project was to ... Read More...

This is the most startling, poetic and tragic story you will read this year... I used to know of a man who, like Sloppy in Our Mutual Friend, could do the Police in different voices. It began as a party trick, for which he always received thunderous rounds of applause, upon ... Read More...

Anyone fancy a 'curry te Kanawa'? Mr Slang enjoys a new lexicography of New Zealand words, even though it is a little clean for his tastes... Once upon a time there was the dictionary. It survives, of course, but not as we knew it, and those thick and squarish books are ... Read More...

There are countless overlooked books that deserve greater recognition - and many of them can be snapped up for a penny online. Here Nige recommends a classic novella... Janet Loxley Lewis was the wife of the eminent critic Yvor Winters, and a considerable poet and novelist in her own right. The Wife of ... Read More...