In the Autumn issue of the excellent literary quarterly Slightly Foxed, our own Henry Jeffreys writes about the late David Nobbs' novel The Death of Reginald Perrin... It was eerie the first time I watched the Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin because it all felt so familiar. I’d bought a DVD ... Read More...
Funny
Back in September 2013, Frank Key posted on The Dabbler his idea of writing a book of very, very brief lives. Thanks in part to the enthusiastic reaction of the Dabbler audience and commenters, this idea has now become a reality, and Mr Key's Shorter Potted Brief, Brief Lives will ... Read More...
Science was surely never as much fun as it was in the 1790s, when Humphry Davy and various poets were experimenting with laughing gas at the Pneumatic Institute... Nitrous Oxide - 'laughing gas' - is in fashion again for recreational purposes, just as it was back in the 1790s, though it was ... Read More...
Back in September 2013, Frank Key posted on The Dabbler his idea of writing a book of very, very brief lives. Thanks in part to the enthusiastic reaction of the Dabbler audience and commenters, this idea has now become a reality, and Mr Key's Shorter Potted Brief, Brief Lives will ... Read More...
Back in September 2013, Frank Key posted on The Dabbler his idea of writing a book of very, very brief lives. Thanks in part to the enthusiastic reaction of the Dabbler audience and commenters, this idea has now become a reality, and Mr Key's Shorter Potted Brief, Brief Lives will ... Read More...
Hugh Laurie once wrote of his teenage self: “I somehow contrived to pull off the gruesome trick of being both fat and thin at the same time”. This summer has managed to be similarly perverse, being first disgustingly hot then offensively cold and wet. Why do we British even pretend ... Read More...
How should one best approach the gates of heaven? Frank receives a top tip from a US military man... Without wishing to be morbid, I have been wondering from time to time how I might conduct myself at the pearly gates of heaven when – far into the future, I hope ... Read More...
Nige recalls some vintage songs banned by the BBC - including some, like a ditty by Cliff Edwards - with good reason... Rattling around in my head, for reasons unknown, was one of Cole Porter's less famous songs, The Physician. This witty - and very catchy - commentary on scientific reductionism ... Read More...
Jonathan Law continues his exploration of that curious and very funny side-alley of literature: the library of non-existent books... Victorian literature has nothing to compare with the ribald, fantastical book lists of Rabelais, Swift, or Donne. And yet the era made its own singular contribution to the history of the phantom ... Read More...
A discovery in a secondhand bookshop takes Steerforth back to the disappointments and confusions of adolescence... During a recent visit to Camilla's Bookshop in Eastbourne, I found the above novel by Richard Condon. It reminded how much superfluous nudity there used to be on book covers, before feminism, AIDS and the new ... Read More...