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Paralympics Opening Ceremony: Enlightenment
Does anyone else think that the opening ceremony for the Paralympic Games far surpassed the main Olympics launch? At the first event there were too many stand-out stars. The Queen was undoubtedly the...
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How I Learned to Speak American
Rita recalls the most embarrassing incident of her life… Americans still hear my English accent, but in England people think I’m an American. In truth my accent must be hovering somewhere in the...
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Celtic Centre – the Slang of Irvine Welsh
Irivine Welsh’s novels contain some of the densest slang writing in fiction. Jonathon takes a trip north of the border… It is a good thing that Eric Partridge was spared Irvine Welsh. Not because the...
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Dabbler Diary – The King Street Republicans
Steve, the Fire Training Officer, had tattooed arms, a sovereign ring and beautiful long eyelashes. My fellow trainee Fire Marshall whispered that she was jealous of the lashes. Looking closer, I...
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Dwile Flonking at the Cotswold Olimpicks
Britain’s triumphant Olympic year is drawing to an end – but will it still be remembered in 400 years? And is it time to reinstate the noble sport of dwile flonking in time for Rio?.. Few realise that...
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The Dabbler goes to Derry
Brit’s away today so I thought that for a change I’d visit Derry in Northern Ireland in his absence. The news out of Belfast wasn’t good, only 24 hours before they’d been burning flags on the streets....
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Review: Jonathan Meades – The Joy of Essex (BBC Four)
Jonathan Meades returns to our screens tonight with The Joy of Essex (BBC Four, 9pm). Our own Jonathon Green finds his old friend in typical acerbic, cliché-bashing form… Jonathan Meades, who has...
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Spinning Around – Life on Glasgow’s Clockwork Orange subway
Exclusively for The Dabbler, writer Karen Campbell takes us on a trip on Glasgow’s unique underground railway… Getting around Glasgow – Scotland’s biggest city – can be a delight on sunny days, as you...
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Dabbler Diary – From a Corner of The Swan
A difference between me and a craftsman is in the level of violent aggression with which I approach manual tasks – this I have noticed about myself. Take screwing. A craftsman would with patience and...
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Alcohol and The Anglosphere
In a special guest post, Canadian commenter Peter muses on the English-speaking world’s various attitudes to booze… The British and Americans have more in common than language to divide them. The...
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A Royal Pain or, The Unfortunate Case of the Queen’s Nose
Rita marks the Queen’s 60th coronation anniversary with an extraordinary confession involving an old-fashioned loo, a taste for lead, and Her Majesty’s nose… The most irritating thing about being a...
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Review: Hobson-Jobson by Sir Henry Yule & A.C. Burnell
Jonathon Green reviews a new edition of a groundbreaking work of Anglo-Indian lexicography… Hobson Jobson A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological,...
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Meadow Browns and Centaury
In which Nige goes for a walk in the Surrey Hills… Against the hot blue sky, the terraced knoll loomed enormous, its summit lost in a shimmering heat-haze. The grassy flanks seemed to radiate a...
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The Good Non-Pub Guide
Henry wonders whether a ‘Good Pub Guide’ actually has any pubs in it… Due to the capricious workings of the UK Border Agency, we went on holiday to Norfolk last year rather than France as originally...
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The Guernsey Tomato Museum
Suggestions for a fun family day out this summer… By some distance the least impressive museum I have ever visited is the Tomato Museum on the island of Guernsey. I think I was about fourteen when we...
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Notes on an Island off the Coast of the EU: History
Following his posts on our geography and sporting pastimes, David Cohen continues his (very) occasional series giving a US perspective of the British with a succinct summary of our history… The...
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The Birmingham Balti – My part in its success
Dabbler editor Gaw explains his role in the popularisation of one of Britain’s finest dishes, the Balti… Accompanied by a family-nan, there is surely no more restorative, tasty and cheap meal to be...
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Britain’s Shanty Towns
Worm guides us through the jerry-built plotlands of Great Britain… Plotlands began in the 1870′s as a way for speculators to offload marginal farmland as Britain’s agrarian populace uprooted en masse...
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Food in the Sixties: The Enigma of Mr and Mrs Fanny Cradock
There was so much to admire about Fanny Cradock. And then it all went wrong… I can’t quite make up my mind about Fanny Cradock. I’m on the fence about this one. There are many things to admire: the...
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Secret London: The Underground Streets of London
Time for the second installment on the curiosities of our capital city from Peter Watts – journalist,self-confessed London geek, and author of Know London. Streets beneath streets, layer upon layer,...
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