Hood Rat - Gavin Knight's new book about Britain's gang culture - makes for uncomfortable reading. We have a double-bill for you, kicking off with Jon Hotten's review... In 1991, David Simon published a book called Homicide: Life On The Killing Streets, that followed for a year the work of three ... Read More...
Britain
Having said all there is to say about Skegness, Brit continues his Dabbler tour of England's seaside towns with a visit to Ilfracombe... There’s a nice little new aquarium in the Devon seaside town of Ilfracombe which takes you down, tank by tank, from the source of the Taw to the ... Read More...
Gwyn Headley must have a claim to being the leading authority on British follies - those purposless pieces of architecture that contribute so much to the greatness and gaiety of the nation. He has recently published the definitive guide Follies of England, available in a series of county-by-county ebooks from ... Read More...
A legion of new poppies has sprouted, thanks to some rather dubious rebranding.There’s no denying that all monies raised are in aid of a very worthy cause, but shouldn’t a little more respect be paid to the timelessly understated and universally recognized, bog standard Royal British Legion poppy? Personally, I ... Read More...
Rita compares the American and British approaches to celebrating in November... One of the oddest questions I’ve been asked since moving to the U.S. is “Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in England?” I resisted the temptation to answer “Yes, we celebrate that the Puritans left and took their repressive ban on dancing ... Read More...
Over the coming week there are two major celebrations, but why has Halloween become so much more popular than Guy Fawkes Night in the UK? In view of current concerns over the preservation of our nation’s official faith, it seems odd that more is not made of Guy Fawkes Night, as ... Read More...
In a post of extraordinary sweep and scope, James Hamilton looks at how the World Wars robbed Britain of its sense of future, symbolised by the eternally backward-facing game of football... My last post about the relationship between the Great War and football generated a debate about the extent to which causualties robbed ... Read More...
Rita Byrne Tull explains her test for revealing the cultural divide between America and Britain... First I must make it clear that I am not now nor have I ever been an imbiber of Coca Cola. So no statements made herein should be taken as either an endorsement or a critique ... Read More...
Dabbler correspondent Toby Ash recalls a really dreadful weekend he once endured in Glasgow. A recent post by fellow Dabbler Susan on why the British put up with lousy hotel rooms brought to mind the self-declared ‘boutique’ hotel in Glasgow I stayed in while working in the city over a weekend ... Read More...
Unfashionably British Gaw takes issue with a Great Living Englishman. Jeremy Paxman in Saturday's Guardian (he has a TV series on the British Empire coming out this autumn): ..."Britishness" was forged through war, industrial expansion and, absolutely crucially, the building of an empire. With the empire gone and the United Kingdom a part of the ... Read More...
