Why does nobody bother to check their voicemail messages any more? Henry Jeffreys investigates the strange death of the answerphone... Have you noticed how nobody seems to call you back anymore? Don’t worry, it’s not because people don’t like you, the truth is that many people and even businesses no longer regularly ... Read More...
General
Some pretty twee writing on a wall prods Nige's memory of a once-famous author... Quotations have their uses. Without them, according to Wodehouse, any conversation between chaps would be nothing but an endless succession of 'What ho's. Oddly, these days, they are increasingly becoming an element of interior design, gracing the ... Read More...
Literary Britain is a very small world, argues Henry Jeffreys, it really does need more 'diversity' - and that means publishing books by people who don't agree with you about everything... My three year old daughter’s nursery school has a diversity officer. On the wall in her classroom is the word ... Read More...
Science was surely never as much fun as it was in the 1790s, when Humphry Davy and various poets were experimenting with laughing gas at the Pneumatic Institute... Nitrous Oxide - 'laughing gas' - is in fashion again for recreational purposes, just as it was back in the 1790s, though it was ... Read More...
After a semi-enforced August break, The Dabbler will be returning to normal service on Tuesday 1 September. Thank you for your patience. ... Read More...
Apologies for the interruption - we had a technical problem preventing us from adding new posts, and while we were fixing it we took the opportunity to make a few other little improvements. Normal Dabbler service will resume shortly. ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his eye-popping slang tour of London with a look at St Giles, once described as offering ‘the lowest conditions under which human life is possible’... The first time I saw the flaming mot, Was at the sign of the Porter Pot. I called for some purl, and we had it ... Read More...
Nige recalls some vintage songs banned by the BBC - including some, like a ditty by Cliff Edwards - with good reason... Rattling around in my head, for reasons unknown, was one of Cole Porter's less famous songs, The Physician. This witty - and very catchy - commentary on scientific reductionism ... Read More...
A discovery in a secondhand bookshop takes Steerforth back to the disappointments and confusions of adolescence... During a recent visit to Camilla's Bookshop in Eastbourne, I found the above novel by Richard Condon. It reminded how much superfluous nudity there used to be on book covers, before feminism, AIDS and the new ... Read More...
Seventy years ago today the age of the atom bomb began with the Trinity Test and a gigantic mushroom cloud in the New Mexico desert. The man who led the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie Groves, was an 'abrasive and sarcastic S.O.B'. But, writes Seamus Sweeney, he also produced what may be one of the best guides ... Read More...
