For Easter Sunday, here is Easter Wings, from the great religious poet and all but saintly priest George Herbert. It is a fine example of 'pattern poetry' or shaped verse, in which the lines assume a form that illustrates and expresses the meaning of the poem. Here each stanza shortens its lines towards ... Read More...
Month: April 2014
A dastardly double-cross from the Yanks is uncovered in this week's weird Wikipedia article… Joint Army and Navy Basic War Plan Red was a war plan created by the United States Army and Navy in the late 1920s and early 1930s to estimate the requirements for a hypothetical war with Great ... Read More...
There was a time when you didn't know even the things you've always just known... I remember the first time I saw the Beatles on television. It was a studio performance of “We Can Work It Out”, which the Wikipedia tells me was filmed on 23 November 1965, so presumably I ... Read More...
What if all that we see or seem takes place in a sea beneath a sea, beneath a sea...? Fans and devotees of Spongebob Squarepants (yes, I’m raising my hand) will recall that while the town of Bikini Bottom itself is located underwater it nevertheless borders a sort of sea-under-the-sea. At ... Read More...
Nige on how the sight of a deer inspired a prize-winning poem which 'inspired' another prize-winning poem... We retroprogressives have long relished the fact that Britain's deer population is back up to medieval levels - but now the news gets even better: the deer population, according to the latest research, is ... Read More...
David Long’s new book A History of London in 100 Places tells the capital’s incredible history through 100 buildings, details and places, from Roman barges to Boris Bike stations. In the first of three exclusive extracts for The Dabbler, David looks at William the Conqueror’s White Tower... This is still by ... Read More...
I’m afraid I’ve never been able to take Wales seriously. My troubles begin, shallowly, with the bilingual road signs, which are funny if the Welsh is very different from the English (Please drive carefully - Gryywch yn ofalus) and even funnier if it is similar (Millennium Stadium - Stadiwm y ... Read More...
From the madness of the Great War came great music, says Mahlerman... ….the old lie: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori Wilfred Owen, 1917-18 Well, the sentiments expressed by Owen ('it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country') are not almost one hundred years old, but were coined in an Ode by ... Read More...
Every Saturday the Wikiworm burrows deeper into the stranger recesses of Wikipedia... Brian Douglas Wells (November 15, 1956 – August 28, 2003) was an unfortunate American pizza delivery man who was killed by a time bomb fastened to his neck, purportedly under coercion from the maker of the bomb. After he ... Read More...
Good evening. My name is Big Ears. You may know me from the books about the wooden toy Noddy written by Enid Blyton, in which I feature quite prominently. It should go without saying that I am not a toy myself. I am a brownie, also known as an urisk, ... Read More...
