Stun your enemies and astound your friends by adding heft to your utterances... If you are planning to introduce the phrase “let the cat out of the bag” into a conversation, you can give your words a weightier punch by having a bag with a cat in it, ready to be ... Read More...
Month: June 2014
Today would be the 89th birthday of comic actor Charlie Drake. But did you know he once appeared alongside Peter Gabriel, Sandy Denny, Robert Fripp and Phil Collins in one of the weirdest prog rock line-ups ever?... Born on this day in 1925 was the diminutive comic Charlie Drake, who was, ... Read More...
In our second Tim book competition inside a week, we've got five copies of Tim Parks' new book to give away... Thanks to our friends at Harvill Secker we’ve got 5 copies of Tim Parks' new book Italian Ways to give away to members of our Book Club. For your chance to win one, ... Read More...
'It ridiculed humour itself'...A week on from the untimely death of Rik Mayall, Professor Nick Groom pays tribute to that peerlessly stupid yet brilliant sitcom The Young Ones... In retrospect, it all seems so simple: a sitcom based in a dilapidated student house, showcasing upcoming young comedians. But that’s hardly recognisable ... Read More...
I have lately become preoccupied with the desolate brown eyes of Jose Carreras. They star in this footage of his attempt to record the soundtrack to West Side Story under the pitiless direction of Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein, as Mahlerman showed us, is a real mensch. Also a bullying bastard. But who ... Read More...
Stephen continues his exploration of the poetic conceit that 'all the world's a stage'... If Life is indeed a drama or comedy in which we are actors, I will hazard a guess that most of us see ourselves as the leading man or the leading lady in the entertainment. James Simmons's ... Read More...
Some very long words to be afraid of in today's rummage through the back of Wikipedia's cabinet of curiosities... Triskaidekaphobia is a fear of the number 13 and avoidance to use it; it is a superstition and related to a specific fear of Friday the 13th, (called paraskevidekatriaphobia or friggatriskaidekaphobia after Frigg, the Norse goddess after whom Friday is named in ... Read More...
We've got five copies of Tim Winton's new book to give away... Thanks to our friends at Picador we’ve got 5 copies of Tim Winton's new novel Eyrie to give away to members of our Book Club. For your chance to win one, you just need to: Join the free Dabbler Book Club ... Read More...
A very spooky tale for Friday the thirteenth... Listen, tiny ones. It is Friday the thirteenth, so if you are good I will take you on an outing. I will take you to the old balsa wood factory on the edge of the big blue lake. Every Friday the thirteenth at ... Read More...
In this exclusive extract from Slightly Foxed's quarterly magazine, Andrew Hall examines the unusual literary career of J.L. Carr, a 'back-bedroom publisher of large maps and small books who, in old age, unexpectedly wrote six novels'... In July 1967 the schoolmaster and part-time novelist J. L. Carr took two years’ leave ... Read More...
