Bookseller Steerforth handles a great many old books in his line of work. Often he'll find old photos and albums amongst the piles of mildewed tomes: snapshots of lost worlds and forgotten lives. Continuing the series in which he shares some of the more interesting, surprising and moving discoveries, he finds some ... Read More...
Year: 2014
Is there anything in sport more melancholy than the English cricketer when the long winter begins? Jon Hotten - The Old Batsman himself - looks back on his efforts in the summer of 2014... After one of my worst seasons ever with the bat last year, I began 2014 by scoring ... Read More...
Continuing our weekly serialisation of Jonathan Law's The Whartons of Winchendon, we meet Philip Wharton, son of Thomas. His pious grandfather had been known as 'The Good Lord', but Philip, founder of 'the Hellfire Club' (devoted to drinking, lewdness, and puerile acts of blasphemy), was a somewhat different character... May it please ... Read More...
My work done, I toddled the length of Bermondsey Street peering critically into windows. Here was a teensy art gallery selling coffee; next door, in stark contrast, was a teensy coffee shop selling art. A barrel-chested man in ironic clothes with an improbably small dog was being rude to the baristas. ... Read More...
Nige reflects on a poem about a painting... I only recently came across the word Ekphrasis (adj. ekphrastic), but I've been enjoying Ekphrasis, all unknowing, for many years. It describes a work of art (or part of one) whose subject is another work of art - from Homer on the shield ... Read More...
Heston Blumenthal? He's old hat. These chaps were into molecular gastronomy over 80 years ago. Another bizarre article from Wikipedia unearthed by the Wikiworm. Futurist meals comprised a cuisine and style of dining advocated by some members of the Futurist movement, particularly in Italy. These meals were first proposed in Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and Fillia's Manifesto of Futurist ... Read More...
Frank Key's Hooting Yard is brought to the screen, thanks to brilliant animator Sharon Smith... The Dabbler is delighted to present this splendid 10-minute animated film by Sharon Smith. It is an adaptation of a tale by our own Frank Key, is narrated by him, and has been screened at film ... Read More...
Douglas has words of consolation for anyone who ever thinks: 'I Am Not My Job'... I started as a busboy and dishwasher at a greasy downtown bar and grill in California’s flat, hot Central Valley. I was “paid” (if you want to call it that) under the table. My duties included killing ... Read More...
Mark Pack explains why the work of a now almost forgotten political novelist is worth seeking out... A best-selling author shifting millions of books in the post-war decades, a renowned public intellectual, a friend of celebrities such as Marlon Brando, a highly respected political scientist and famous enough to feature in ... Read More...
Continuing our weekly serialisation of Jonathan Law's The Whartons of Winchendon, the story of Thomas Wharton takes a turn for the darker and stranger... Although Tom Wharton spent his last years in the incongruous role of a much honoured elder statesman, he would be outlived by one last, semi-mysterious scandal – a ... Read More...
