Richard Burton and the Kings of the Underworld

Gaw recalls a Welshman who was a self-made hero to some, a self-romanticising show-off to others. Brit's clip of Richard Burton reading Under Milk Wood from Lazy Sunday Afternoon the other week sent me looking for more opportunities to hear that voice. Here's a spell-binding excerpt from an interview where he talks about mining. ... Read More...

Dabbler Heroes: Eudoxus of Cnidos

Scott Locklin looks back admiringly at an ancient Greek who dabbled more originally, profoundly and variously than pretty much anyone else ever. Εύδοξος ο Κνίδιος It’s a modern conceit that we are the most sophisticated people who ever lived. Much of what we know comes from a bunch of pederasts in ancient Magna ... Read More...

Green’s Heroes of Slang: 6. John Camden Hotten

Jonathon Green introduces his favourite collector of slang (and an ancestor of The Dabbler's very own Jon Hotten), John Camden Hotten... SLANG represents that evanescent, vulgar language, ever changing with fashion and taste,...spoken by persons in every grade of life, rich and poor, honest and dishonest...Slang is indulged in from a ... Read More...

Dabbler Heroes: Norman Stone

Some of my most enduring memories of the two years I spent as a graduate student at Oxford are of the times I spent with Norman Stone, then the university’s professor of modern history. He was very clever but also witty, provocative and just damn fun to get drunk with. I ... Read More...

The sheer unlikeliness of CB Fry

John Arlott called him 'the most variously gifted Englishman of any age,' and Arlott, conjuring his musty magic from an old typewriter set next a glass of something good and red, was probably right. The sheer unlikeliness of CB Fry continues to astonish, more than half a century after his ... Read More...

Dabbler Heroes: Shane MacGowan

For someone born in Kent and educated at Westminster School, Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan is pretty damn Irish. If your image of MacGowan as the archetypal Paddy Baddie – a rebellious anti-hero straight out of the pages of a J P Donleavy novel: gap-toothed, black-toothed, staggering blind drunk from the bar-brawl ... Read More...

Green’s Heroes of Slang: 2. George Ade

Jonathon Green continues his occasional 'Heroes of Slang' series by looking at American author George Ade... He was a mid-Westerner (Indiana and thus a ‘Hoosier’ maybe from the rustic’s faltering ‘Who’s here?’) and admirably prolific (93 titles in the Library of Congress). He had been a columnist on the Chicago Morning News and ... Read More...

His Bobness at 70 – a Dabbler Tribute to Dylan

  Bob Dylan turns 70 today and to mark the event, four Dabbler Dylanists pick a favourite song and explain why he matters. Happy Birthday Bob! Mahlerman -- Thunder on the Mountain ROBERT ALLEN ZIMMERMAN Born: Duluth, Minnesota: May 24th, 1941 Occupations: Musician, Dabbler My, he's as slippery as mercury, but of one thing there is little doubt: ... Read More...