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...
Dabbler Diary
Turns out there was a malevolent worm lurking still in the depths of our code, sending smoke signals to the spammers whenever we changed our passwords; spreading its poison; hollowing us out. Our own Worm thinks we’ve killed it now. ** I felt there was something similar in my soul as I ... Read More...
A shortish Diary this week to welcome you to the new-look Dabbler. I've been busy - though not as busy as Worm, who has worked tirelessly in his spare time to drag this beloved blog into its latest incarnation. You will know that we were down for more than a ... Read More...
Whenever the younger generations become resentful of our elders, with their lavish pensions, big houses and long, expensive retirements, and wonder what is the point of the blasted old codgers, we should take a look at this graphic and apologise for our ingratitude: 71% of 16-17 year olds voted in favour ... Read More...
We four were driving to the swimming pool in the afternoon sunshine of the last Sunday in August, descending the long slope of Air Balloon Road, when I noticed a Seat at the bottom of the hill give the kerb a whack. ‘That driver’s a bit rubbish’, I said to ... Read More...
Like Kim Wilde I was in the nineteen-eighties much attracted to the kids in America. I had a hankering to join them in gang bike rides around their capacious Californian neighbourhoods, and to eat delicious junk food in their diners, and to outwit their Fratellis and other incompetent bandits and ... Read More...
On a stage at the Festival of Nature – one of Bristol’s many, many spurious summer festivals – a man and a woman wearing flat caps with fox ears were performing a song about a rabbit going hop, hop, hop. My girls were hopping away on the Floating Harbour’s cobbled ground. ... 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...
To the Watershed cinema and ‘digital creativity centre’, to hear Jonathan Meades talk about his new book. The event was part of the Bristol Festival of Ideas, and my escort was the combative Islington-based journalist Pippa Tregaskis, who two years ago interviewed Meades for The Dabbler ahead of his bewildering BBC ... Read More...
I was twelve when we moved from the city to the country, and soon after that deracinating adventure my father drove us to the National Canine Defence League kennels at West Down, where we acquired a dog. My parents had already secretly sussed out the prime candidate, a mongrel pup ... Read More...