A few years ago bookseller Steerforth came across a remarkable diary, which he began to publish on his blog and which we now serialise on The Dabbler. If you're new to Derek, you can catch up with the previous instalments here. This week: 1986, and Derek faces financial disaster... 1986 appears ... Read More...
Month: December 2013
An eerily perfect etching casts a chilly spell over Jonathan Law. Winter in the cathedral city – somewhere in the north of England, some time (we might guess) in the earlier 1500s. Gothic structures rise from the earth, rear ponderously skyward, and lose themselves in the glistening, frosty light. Snow on ... Read More...
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...
I originally clicked on this wikipedia page link as I thought it would be something terrifying. Instead it involves a bland politician and his magic weather voodoo... The Gore Effect is a term used with various meanings relating to the former Vice President of the United States and Nobel Peace Prize ... Read More...
Are you sitting comfortably? Snuggle down by the fire with a mince pie and a glass of warm grog, as Frank Key brings you a festive tale... “Hearken ye, stooped mendicant at my gate! I am Good King Wenceslas, and I am looking out, and I can see you, poor and ... Read More...
It's Boxing Day, and today marks the centenary of the birth of food writer Elizabeth David who, Toby Ash believes, still has more to offer the modern domestic kitchen than all of today’s celebrity chefs put together. I just can’t imagine Elizabeth David stealing from Tesco. No, not Elizabeth. She was ... Read More...
Merry Christmas from all at The Dabbler! It has now become a Dabbler tradition to give Brit's tragicomic Christmas poem an airing. The ideal time to read it is on Christmas Day, upon waking after your post-lunch nap... A boozy, stomach-busting Christmas dinner – preceded by beer and champagne, accompanied by ... Read More...
Stephen brings you some poetry for Christmas Eve... Christina Rossetti's best-known poem is usually sung or listened to, not read. I suspect that many of those who sing or listen to the verses are not aware that they were written by Rossetti. Here is the first stanza of the poem: In the ... Read More...
Professor Nick Groom's new book The Seasons: An Elegy for the Passing of the Year is a celebration of the English seasons and the trove of strange folklore and often stranger fact they have accumulated over the centuries. In an exclusive post for The Dabbler, Nick looks at the English Christmas... Hallowe’en, ... Read More...
Expect the unexpected with Mahlerman's selection of festive music... Drifting very slightly off-message this Christmas, the 'day of birth' refers not just to the child, but to the fresh, seraphic world-view of all children at the moment of birth. The English composer Gerald Finzi's taste was always meditative rather than dramatic, ... Read More...