Will Lowe helps you face the New Year by mixing a much-needed winter warmer. It's January in England. And everywhere else for that matter. But here, especially, this means cold, dark, soggy evenings. Try this recipe as a winter-warmer, a traditional 'cure-all' for those seasonal sniffles, or as a delicious digestif. Start with ... Read More...
Dabbler Christmas
In which Gaw writes in praise of a song you're heartily sick of by now... At this stage of the proceedings to ask you to pay some attention to a Christmas song is about as palatable a proposition as asking you to polish off another box of sickly chocs. However, I ... Read More...
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...
From Bugs Bunny to a zombie apocalypse version, producers have been resurrecting and then murdering Dickens' Christmas ghosts for many years... I had suspected there were a lot but it was not until researching an article on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol for sofa.com that I discovered just how many adaptations ... Read More...
Merry Christmas to all our readers! In lieu of a card, here are some Christmas memories from the Dabbler Editorial staff, plus some lovely music... Gaw - Arguments About War Some of my fondest Christmas memories are of the arguments (and I don’t mean rows). There was a golden period for arguing: two ... Read More...
Professor Nick Groom explains the English tradition of the Christmas Eve ghost story... The nights are long and dark, the wind is bitter chill, the leafless trees are rimed with ice: winter has arrived with a sudden ferocity. What better than to lock the doors, curl up beside a log fire, ... Read More...
After reading this post, singing about a partridge in a pear tree will never be quite the same again... Twelve drummers drumming, Eleven pipers piping, Ten lords a-leaping, Nine ladies dancing, Eight maids a-milking, Seven swans a-swimming, Six geese a-laying, Five golden rings, Four calling birds, Three French hens, Two turtle doves, And a partridge in a pear tree! So they do sing. ... Read More...
Merry Christmas from all at The Dabbler! It has now become a Dabbler tradition to give Brit's tragicomic Christmas poem an airing. The ideal time to read it is on Christmas Day, upon waking after your post-lunch nap... A boozy, stomach-busting Christmas dinner – preceded by beer and champagne, accompanied by ... Read More...
Professor Nick Groom's new book The Seasons: An Elegy for the Passing of the Year is a celebration of the English seasons and the trove of strange folklore and often stranger fact they have accumulated over the centuries. In an exclusive post for The Dabbler, Nick looks at the English Christmas... Hallowe’en, ... Read More...
As is now a Dabbler tradition, here's Brit's Christmas poem... Ghosts of Christmas Christmas, like revenge or copulation, Is mostly fun in the anticipation. It’s weeks, it’s days, and now it’s here, it’s here! And now it’s gone, in a haze of port and beer, And leaves you wondering where the hell it went. Children learn this ... Read More...
