This is one of the editors' favourite ever Dabbles. ZMKC recalls an early experience of being too creative for a 'creativity-first' school, and explains how it has influenced her career as a blogger... When I was about nine I began exchanging letters with a girl called Paula who was in the ... Read More...
Worth Repeating
Crumbling châteaux and closet gay Counts - here's Gaw's terrific tale of some strange lodgings he took whilst playing rugby in South-West France.... Being a professional sportsman isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's actually very boring. Training isn't mentally stimulating and professional sportsmen tend not to be that interesting; ... Read More...
Radio 4 reporter Becky Milligan ponders the secret of happiness... The question is: what makes you happy? What makes you laugh so hard you’re sick on the floor? Are you happier than sadder? Or so-so, on cruise control, or just below par? And what makes you cry, sob into your sandwiches, ... Read More...
Barendina Smedley stumbles across a less reported view of a momentous year... A few days ago, a battered copy of the Studio Year Book turned up here. The date on the much-sellotaped cover was 1939. To move beyond that cover is to embark upon what feels like an act of low-cost, high-speed, ... Read More...
Brisbane-based journalist Ben Atherton reveals how Dylan Thomas led him astray... Back in the good old days, when I was trying to get my first job on newspapers, a standard interview question was: "Why do you want to become a journalist?". The standard answer always began with platitudes about an "enjoyment" of ... Read More...
An eerily perfect etching casts a chilly spell over Jonathan Law. Winter in the cathedral city – somewhere in the north of England, some time (we might guess) in the earlier 1500s. Gothic structures rise from the earth, rear ponderously skyward, and lose themselves in the glistening, frosty light. Snow on ... Read More...
Daniel Kalder reflects on the fate of world leaders, from cock of the walk one minute to feather duster the next. All is vanity! Recently I acquired a collection of LIFE magazines from 1971, and was curious to see what was making the news back then. You can probably guess some ... Read More...
Toby Ash confesses to a secret crush... For several years now I have posted quite regularly and have enjoyed participating in the wise, lively and good-natured banter that is daily Dabber life. So I like to think I am part of The Dabbler community; that I am among friends. Right so far? ... Read More...
Brit's Dabbler Diary is taking an August break. So here, by popular demand, is a repeat of the one of the most memorable posts ever to appear on The Dabbler: the anti-diary, in which Mr Slang takes stroll through Great Wen and calls for Armageddon... Some Lord’s day. I know not ... Read More...
Richard Briers died on Monday. By way of a tribute, here is a repeat of Jon Hotten's post about an episode of Ever Decreasing Circles and its "quiet, unacknowledged and deep-running despair", which features, naturally enough, a game of cricket... You might remember Ever Decreasing Circles, a British - make that ... Read More...