I Remember My Father

Frank remembers his father, who would have been 90 years old today... I remember Joe Brainard, Georges Perec, and Gilbert Adair. In I Remember (1970) Brainard devised a form of memoir-writing based on short, single-sentence fragments, following no particular sequence, each beginning with the words “I remember ...” The memory that ... Read More...

Christmas in the Left-wing Style

Frank Key recalls a cosy memory of a 1980s Christmas on the political hard Left... 1983 was, for me, a memorable year for Christmas crackers. I was young, newly-married, and an earnest and idealistic leftie. Being the armchair revolutionary type, I had not actually joined any of the various socialist or ... Read More...

The Pursuit of Knowledge

Google and Wikipedia have utterly transformed our relationship with knowledge, and now everything we need to know seems to be accessible within seconds. We have gained much - but what have we lost?... The novelist Jean Rhys, after a long period of inactivity, responded to her publisher’s gentle suggestion that she ... Read More...

Ha-Ha Brouhaha

In this story, extracted from Frank's new book The Funny Mountain, an 18th century Baron's ha-ha wall plays an important role in intergalactic warfare... Writers of science fiction are fond of the invisible force-field, an unseen barrier which unexpectedly stops a spaceman, or the evil Thargon, in his tracks. Landscape gardeners ... Read More...

The knowledgeable Mr Sylvester Patridge

Frank is handing over responsibility for his correspondence to an 18th century chap called Patridge (or possibly Partridge - there's a fair chance he misspelled his own name)... I regularly receive letters from readers, both of The Dabbler and of my own Hooting Yard blog, imploring me to offer advice on ... Read More...

I Was Shackleton’s Extra Man

It has long been believed that Ernest Shackleton's glimpses of an 'extra man' on his Antarctic expedition were exhausted hallucinations. But Frank has discovered important new evidence showing that he may have been right all along... Who is the third who always walks beside you? When I count, there are only you ... Read More...

A Recipe for Gruel – The Movie

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...

Invoking Sumai

Watching Game of Thrones intently, Frank discovers an extremely useful rhetorical device... There is a scene in the second series of Game Of Thrones where Daenarys Targaryen and her raggle-taggle band of Dothraki followers, having struggled across the vast and desolate Red Wastes, their food and water supplies exhausted, seek entrance ... Read More...