Roll up! Roll up! A royal wedding just wouldn't be a royal wedding without an avalanche of tat for simpletons to stockpile, so with great fanfare we present The Dabbler's guide to the most dispensible wedding mementos out there... First up, we have Royal Wedding Top Trumps -which might bring a ... Read More...
Shopping
A little while ago Dabbler co-editor Brit discovered, via Mike Beversluis, the above magnificent chart from a 1940s edition of TIME magazine (click on it for a larger picture), which purports to explain everyday tastes from Highbrow to Lowbrow. It was instantly clear that an updated version for 2011 Britain was required, ... Read More...
London is a town of many centres. I'm not talking about the West End, but the local high streets and shopping centres of Greater London, which mirror many others up and down the country. Each is slightly different, but the general pattern isn't a very pretty one. I’ve already mentioned one ... Read More...
. Following our books for Christmas recommendations, The Dabbler's very own style columnist Susan Muncey selects some ideal festive gifts from her Shopcurious collection.... Online shopping is perfect if you’d rather not venture out in the cold, or mingle with the multitude on the streets at Christmas. Described by the FT How ... Read More...
In July, David Cameron gave Barack Obama a £2500 painting by Ben Eine in an art swap. Apparently, Samantha Cameron heard about Ben through her friend Anya Hindmarch, and became a fan of his work – even though Eine is only the fifth best-selling artist at Brighton based Art Republic ... Read More...
Brit was on the road the other day and, having arrived home safely, emailed to tell me - amongst other more admin-related things - how the WH Smiths at the motorway services was infested with single men. They were loitering around the magazine racks. Furtive, heads down, not making eye contact. I was ... Read More...
I used to regularly travel on business with a friend who would always take the opportunity to watch a shopping channel when we stayed in a hotel with cable or satellite TV (this was in the days when most British TVs only received the five channels). He was in awe of ... Read More...
Rumour has it that fashionably retro-progressive gents are investing in the priceless heritage of a bygone era. For those who want to go one better than the blinging new labels of Savile Row, there’s a firm of ‘fashionable tailors’ offering the epitome of understated style. Curiously located on a perilous ... Read More...
I've seen two things in the last couple of weeks that have unsettled me. Not disturbed, just unsettled. One was the Cow Leg Trouser from our marvellous Retroprogressive feature. The other was this story about artisanal pencil sharpening: "With an electric pencil sharpener, a pencil is meat," Rees said. "It's this ... Read More...