Travellers in need of a good night’s sleep are hardly likely to want to stay at the nearest station hotel. And, if you’re a regular commuter, you certainly won’t relish the thought of a room that looks out onto a station concourse… These are some of the reasons why I ... Read More...
London
Jonathon Green continues his slang tour of London with a trip to the 'specialist' bookshops of The Backside of St Clements... All gone now. What you’re looking at above is the Australian High Commission (though didn’t that get knocked down too a year ago or so?). Like Fred and Rose’s lair at ... Read More...
Guest reviewer Stephanie Thomson falls in love with an unusual tribute to London, and reckons it's a perfect Christmas gift... How do you describe love at first sight? It’s relatively straightforward to explain how and when it happens, but the ‘why’ is more elusive. I fell in love with London 26 years ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his slang tour of London with a look at the chequered history of Black Mary's Hole... We have been to Clerkenwell before and here we are again. I shall forswear Pissing Alley, long bowdlerized as Passing Alley but still redolent of the odours that named it; I shall ... Read More...
Entry to Frieze, (£27), entitles you to buy: a catalogue and a canvas bag; overpriced art books in the bookstore - and actual works of art, if you are gullible enough can afford them. You can also buy drinks/lunch/dinner in the designer café, or restaurant – all a bit of ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his slang tour of London by venturing into an area just off Bethnal Green Road known as the "worst street in London"... So which was the worst street in London? Marked in the most stygian black (‘lowest class...occasional labourers, street sellers, loafers, criminals and semi-criminals’) on Charles Booth’s ... Read More...
When I read AA Gill’s searing review of the Gilbert Scott restaurant at the new St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, I wondered why he hadn’t gone to Rules instead. Anyway, without further ado, here is my top 10 list of old fashioned eating houses in central London: 1) Rules Sources say: Established by ... Read More...
Jonathon Green continues his remarkable slang tour of London with a stroll down the Dilly, taking care to avoid a dose of the Piccadilly cramp... I’m Gilbert the Filbert, the knut with a k, The pride of Piccadilly, the blasé roué. Oh Hades! the Ladies who leave their wooden huts, For Gilbert the Filbert, ... Read More...
Nige discovers a once-famous and now nearly-forgotten poet while sitting on a park bench... I've written before about the pleasure of sitting in the dry in Holland Park and looking out at the rain. Not long ago I was doing just that, from a comfortable bench in a south-facing alcove, enjoying ... Read More...
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...
