This week Frank's cupboard contains some essential equipment for the Victorian camping enthusiast... For convenience the following list is inserted here. It is condensed from a number of notes made for trips of all sorts, except boating and horseback-riding. It is by no means exhaustive... Be careful not to be led ... Read More...
Key’s Cupboard
The mind of Frank Key
Few of Dennis Beerpint's groundbreaking poetical works imagining the violent deaths of 1960s pop bands survive, but the one about Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich thankfully does... Brit's recent postage of unnerving poems for children reminded me of the work of the little-known poet Dennis Beerpint. In the 1960s, ... Read More...
The ever-industrious Mr Key has lately embarked upon a complete retelling of The Bible (including the Apocrypha) in the Hooting Yard style. Here is an exclusive extract... “How now, Holofernes,” said Judith. Holofernes put down his sack of grubbings on the floor and leaned to kiss the back of Judith’s hand. “Your moustache ... Read More...
Stun your enemies and astound your friends by adding heft to your utterances... If you are planning to introduce the phrase “let the cat out of the bag” into a conversation, you can give your words a weightier punch by having a bag with a cat in it, ready to be ... Read More...
A very spooky tale for Friday the thirteenth... Listen, tiny ones. It is Friday the thirteenth, so if you are good I will take you on an outing. I will take you to the old balsa wood factory on the edge of the big blue lake. Every Friday the thirteenth at ... Read More...
Word Cup fever has reached The Dabbler! Here's Frank's complete guide to the foopball tournament... Next week sees the beginning of the 2014 World Cup foopball tournament, What this consists of, for the uninitiated, is a few weeks during which men in shorts run around grassy fields, huffing and puffing and ... Read More...
Next time you complain about your GP, spare a thought for the Victorians... From The Reverend Prince And His Abode Of Love by Charles Mander (1976): As a doctor his bedside manner was startling. He seemed more intent on reducing his patients to gibbering mental wrecks over the state of their souls ... Read More...
Since Numan posed his seminal question concerning friendship and electricity, many renowned thinkers have attempted to answer it. But have they ever really succeeded?... A generation ago, the aeroplane pilot and sage Numan asked “Are friends electric?” It was pertinent then, and is perhaps more so now. Over the years, many ... Read More...
This week, Frank gets down with the gnomes... As I wander about the world, or my small part of it, one thing I find peculiarly distressing is the number of persons of frantic mien who rush up to me and clutch at my lapels, beseeching me. “Mr Key, Mr Key!” they plead, ... Read More...
Prepare to weep for your lost youth and joy... First Heart-Rending Elegy In Loopy Copse, when I was young, all golden were the shrubs and trees. All golden I remember them, and Bonkers Maisie from the farm. Maisie was unkempt and mad, just like her brother and her dad. Her sister left them long ago. ... Read More...
