A difference between me and a craftsman is in the level of violent aggression with which I approach manual tasks – this I have noticed about myself. Take screwing. A craftsman would with patience and care twiddle his bradawl and drive in his screws at a steady, sensible pace, whereas ... Read More...
Britain
Exclusively for The Dabbler, writer Karen Campbell takes us on a trip on Glasgow's unique underground railway... Getting around Glasgow – Scotland’s biggest city – can be a delight on sunny days, as you stroll by the city’s seventy-odd parks, glittering shops and sandstone boulevards; it can be an assault course ... Read More...
Jonathan Meades returns to our screens tonight with The Joy of Essex (BBC Four, 9pm). Our own Jonathon Green finds his old friend in typical acerbic, cliché-bashing form... Jonathan Meades, who has guided us of late around the Baltic Fringe and through the less obvious aspects of France, has made his ... Read More...
Brit's away today so I thought that for a change I'd visit Derry in Northern Ireland in his absence. The news out of Belfast wasn't good, only 24 hours before they'd been burning flags on the streets. The Dabbler always aims to seek out the quirky and offbeat, and here I ... Read More...
Britain's triumphant Olympic year is drawing to an end - but will it still be remembered in 400 years? And is it time to reinstate the noble sport of dwile flonking in time for Rio?.. Few realise that the first Olympic revival took place not in the 19th century, but exactly ... Read More...
Steve, the Fire Training Officer, had tattooed arms, a sovereign ring and beautiful long eyelashes. My fellow trainee Fire Marshall whispered that she was jealous of the lashes. Looking closer, I could see what she meant; he had the eyes of Audrey Hepburn. In all other respects Steve was impeccably ... Read More...
Rita recalls the most embarrassing incident of her life... Americans still hear my English accent, but in England people think I’m an American. In truth my accent must be hovering somewhere in the mid-Atlantic after so many years immersion in the American dialect. It takes a long time for an accent ... Read More...
Does anyone else think that the opening ceremony for the Paralympic Games far surpassed the main Olympics launch? At the first event there were too many stand-out stars. The Queen was undoubtedly the most star-worthy of these. But the real star was the stadium.The LED lights completely stole the show – ... Read More...
Photograph: Local_man I like Hertfordshire. If you don't know England, this is an understated county of meagre size, found to the north of the London suburbs. Here the urban sprawl gives way to a rolling landscape: golden wheatfields, red-brick shuttered cottage ornées, church spires and tarred clapboard barns. Very Biedermeier. It ... Read More...
The lucky winners of the latest Dabbler Book Club selection… Free books. What’s not to like? Especially when the book in question is Robert Macfarlane's The Old Ways, a book that has deservedly been sitting in the bestseller lists for weeks now. Told in Macfarlane’s distinctive and celebrated voice, the book ... Read More...
