Stephen gives us two rather wonderful anecdotes... I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that Ludwig Wittgenstein admired Samuel Johnson. Perhaps I should not have been surprised: both of them sought -- to use one of Wittgenstein's characteristic words -- "clarity," and both of them abhorred -- to use one of Johnson's characteristic words -- ... Read More...
Funny
Stun your enemies and astound your friends by adding heft to your utterances... If you are planning to introduce the phrase “let the cat out of the bag” into a conversation, you can give your words a weightier punch by having a bag with a cat in it, ready to be ... Read More...
Word Cup fever has reached The Dabbler! Here's Frank's complete guide to the foopball tournament... Next week sees the beginning of the 2014 World Cup foopball tournament, What this consists of, for the uninitiated, is a few weeks during which men in shorts run around grassy fields, huffing and puffing and ... Read More...
Ever wondered why sailors' wives retain their youthful looks for so long, or why giants have low sexual energy? 'Professor' R. B. D. Wells has the answers... Curmudgeons who moan about bloggers and Wikipedia argue that the democratic nature of the web has allowed ill-informed, ordinary people to flood the internet ... Read More...
Continuing the theme of plagiarism from Nige's post, here, raised from the archives as a Bank Holiday treat, is Noseybonk's take on the dodgy hack Johann Hari... Those who have been following the remarkable case of the plagiarising, Wikipedia-manipulating Independent journalist Johann Hari will know that he has handed back ... Read More...
I’m afraid I’ve never been able to take Wales seriously. My troubles begin, shallowly, with the bilingual road signs, which are funny if the Welsh is very different from the English (Please drive carefully - Gryywch yn ofalus) and even funnier if it is similar (Millennium Stadium - Stadiwm y ... Read More...
Good evening. My name is Big Ears. You may know me from the books about the wooden toy Noddy written by Enid Blyton, in which I feature quite prominently. It should go without saying that I am not a toy myself. I am a brownie, also known as an urisk, ... Read More...
'piles: see Benn, Tony'... Just occasionally, a book's index is a work of art in itself. Here, Jonathan Law finds some that offer a hilarious insight into 1970s Britain... In a recent Dabbler Diary, Brit wrote interestingly about reactions to the passing of Tony Benn – that “indefatigable, articulate, admirable, unique ... Read More...
In October last year Frank Key posted about the wonderful Puffin book The Pirates' Tale by Janet Aitchison, aged five and a half. He said in the piece: Janet Aitchison will be middle-aged by now... We can only hope she gets in touch if she sees this. And lo! and behold, ... Read More...
Revealed: the shocking truth about the less well-known Cub Scout badges... When I was eight, a great-uncle offered me the princely sum of 50p to join the local Cub Scouts. I'd never had that much money before and was sorely tempted, but I couldn't bear the idea of having to wear ... Read More...
