In this week's cupboard, some dreadful seaside ruffianism... A correspondent known only as C. L. S. had the following letter published in The Times on 16 August 1871: Sir, – On Monday last I had the misfortune of taking a trip per steamer to Margate. The sea was rough, the ship ... Read More...
Key’s Cupboard
The mind of Frank Key
The Ancient Egyptians really weren't very bright, argues Frank... Two things serve to persuade me that the Ancient Egyptians were a peculiarly dim-witted rabble. There is a tendency to regard the great civilisations of the past through rose-tinted spectacles. One thinks of Edgar Allan Poe, writing of “the glory that was Greece ... Read More...
Frank goes looking for trouble... They say the devil is in the detail, but is that a fact? I decided to find out. First of all, though, I wanted to have a better idea of “the detail”. I was pretty sure I would know the devil when I saw him, but ... Read More...
To mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, here's a craft project... Hello readers! I am going to show you how to make a lovely scale model of Dealey Plaza, the site in Dallas, Texas, of the Kennedy assassination fifty years ago today on 22 November 1963. First, get some plasticine. ... Read More...
This week Frank goes for a walk in London... The other day I was walking through the City of London and as I turned on to Crutched Friars I almost collided with a friar on crutches. “Oi! Watch where you’re going!” he shouted. “I do beg your pardon,” I said, for I am ... Read More...
Frank reveals the history of the mysterious ghostly goo... During the heyday of spiritualism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the dead chose somewhat curious ways of communicating with the living. Through their mediums, they rapped on tables, shifted or levitated furniture, caused sudden drops in room temperature, played ... Read More...
Frank pays tribute to one of the great, and quite bonkers, prose stylists... If Charles Montagu Doughty (1843-1926) is remembered at all today, it is as the author of Travels In Arabia Deserta, a classic account of his wanderings in northern Arabia, published in 1888. One hesitates to call it influential, for ... Read More...
With the free press currently under threat from Leveson and Hacked Off, it's worth reminding ourselves of the proud history of British newspapers in fearlessly bringing us the important stories of the day... My friend Peter was browsing through the papers the other day and felt compelled to bring some of ... Read More...
Readers of a milksop disposition, look away now! From the archives, Frank once again besmirches the pages of The Dabbler with pure unbridled filth... According to John Trevelyan in What The Censor Saw (1973), the following list includes some of the disgusting and morally repugnant subjects rightly banned by the British Board of Film ... Read More...
This week, a thriller! Or perhaps a crime caper!... Ratatatat! Ratatatat! Prohibition-era machine gun fire pursued Blodgett as he fled down an alleyway. He was panting, dripping with sweat, and made an easy target, decked out as he was in the colourful raiment of a Bolivian mountain goatherd. But the cops ... Read More...
