....let steeple bells be swungen etc. A year is a long time in blogging, and this has very much been a year of two halves on Think of Englan...

is being severely tested by this snow and ice business... But over there I wallow in Phil Spector's Christmas Gift For You.

Yesterday at the Dabbler I examined Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait. Look out for Adelephant's fiendish quiz question there later toda...

Oops!

Over at The Dabbler, the latest fiendish Round Blogworld Quiz is in full swing...

Over at The Dabbler I interview the MD of Bath Ales, creators of Gem . Oh and the other day I posted on Degas, Velazquez and nudes.

Busy, busy...but over at The Dabbler I have posted on James McIntyre, the Cheese Poet .

Over at The D I conclude our special Germany day (Wehrmacht Wednesday? - no, best not) with a look at the tolerably horrible Messerchmidt ...

Over at The Dabbler I post on the extraordinary upside-down cartoonist Gustave Verbeek .

It would be remiss of this blog not to note England's near-unprecedented annihilation of Australia in Adelaide, but this year I'm ...

Over at The Dabbler I set the latest fiendish Round Blogworld brainteaser...

Good article by David Aaranovitch in today's Times . It's behind the paywall so to summarise: - confounding expectations, the Bradle...

I caught a bit of a Sky Arts Classic Albums documentary about the making of U2’s The Joshua Tree the other night. It was nicely done and B...

Watching Question Time last night, in the usual wincing, groaning, masochistic way, a disturbingly elitist thought came to me, and try as I ...

"Come on lads, schmooze! Schmooze like you've never schmoozed before!" cried Cameron, rallyingly. But alas the last desperate ...

The crushing disappointment is palpable, isn't it? Especially in The Guardian . Last night's Newsnight reeked of it. 'Thousands...