Every branch big with it

Controversy continues to rage here at The Dabbler - now Gaw's claiming that the recent weather has really been quite enjoyable I can’t remember enjoying snow so much. It must have something to do with there being just enough for some fun but not enough to disrupt travel too seriously, at ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary: There Is No Alternative

The second remarkable thing you noticed about him – a middle-aged Indian gentleman, stout but trim, and wearing a silk tunic in traditional paisley pattern – was the preternatural sense of calm he exuded. One sensed a feeling of deep peace within him, a resigned acceptance of life and its ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary: Happy Stew Year!

Last week I recalled a Scot from my local rugby club who – this was the late-‘70s – adopted the outward signs of being a Frenchman: Citroen DS, Gauloises, vin rouge, beret. An unusual obsession, but an understandable one. After all, has there been a better time and place for ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary: Chalk and Cheese

When I was a young lad, just beginning to appreciate the coarser things in life, one of the characters at the local rugby club was a Scotsman who, to a peculiar degree, took on the persona of a Frenchman: Gitanes, vin rouge, Citroen DS, beret. Very much a Francophile, as ... Read More...

Sofas vs Tables

How far can you travel on a sofa? I’ve been working on and off for a number of years in the world of sofas, God forgive me. So I was surprised I hadn’t heard of the “sofa poem by Seamus Heaney” that a colleague referred to the other day. She was ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary: Flog It!

Austerity of austerities, all is austerity! I've been wondering: how are we going to pay our way in the world? Sunday, and we were in Oxford, visiting the postgraduate college where my wife and I met. It’s doubled in size: there are two new large buildings, mostly residential, with another academic ... Read More...

Dabbler Diary: Phlegm, Flimflam, Slam

There’s a new self-help book out, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking. The nub of the thesis appears to be as follows: ...saying positive affirmations to yourself in the mirror can make you feel worse and … visualizing the future can make you less likely to achieve ... Read More...

The Quirkier Queens of Pop

Not your usual warblers... On a Friday night at 9pm BBC4 occasionally show some of the best documentaries on rock and pop music I’ve ever seen. Yes, they are indeed worth the license fee on their own. A couple of weeks ago they showed Queens of British Pop and it got ... Read More...

The Unsettling Gull

It happens to be around about the right time of year for a poem featuring the seagull.Susan’s post of last Saturday and associated comments touched on the subject of seagulls. I think we can all agree that they’re unsettling. But I don’t think it’s just about the ‘cold, black eyes’ ... Read More...