Alexander Pope is, as this blog has established , the most quoted English poet. He died 266 years ago today and two people wrote poems on t...

On Monday I was chatting with some political types (or rather they were chatting and I was sternly drinking my wine) when they all started...

Bashful is one of those wonderful words without an opposite. Try as you might, nobody will ever call you bashless. Which poses the questi...

There's a rather strange work by Thomas Nashe called Summer's Last Will and Testament . It is about the handover of seasons in the...

The jubilee approacheth, and millions of patriotic British etymologists are trying to turn sheep into musical instruments. When God and M...

As you step out in the cold misery of a British May, you don your hat. Then you see a lady of your acquaintance and you doff your hat. The...

Stool at bottom right I spent yesterday lounging around at Lord's watching a game of stool-ball . This is a sport in which a chap ...