Doggerel – London's Singing Organ-Grinder

A walk from Petersfield over the South Downs to Bishop’s Waltham

From the banks of the Rother (almost) via Stroud, Ramsdean, the source of the Meon (just about), Frogmore, East Meon, Old Winchester Hill, Droxford and Upper Swanmore to the source of the Hamble (very nearly). Featuring an erudite parrot, Edward Thomas and John Owen Smith, William Cobbett and Gilbert White, Charles II and Winston Churchill, Eric Ravilious and a 1791 chic doggerel tombstone, and two extinct railways.

Organ-grinding tweets for December

Xmas &c.

If any would not work neither should he eat: Walthamstow workhouse.

Epitaph of Bernard Fry, surgeon, in St. Mary’s graveyard, Stafford

Resurrectional doggerel for these dark days.

The Singing Organ-Grinder’s tweets for October

More rubbish.

Organ-grinder in courtyard - Bruno Schulz illustration to his story Księga, The Book, 1937.

The Singing Organ-Grinder’s tweets for September

A rubbish heap in which a Ukrainian nuclear fireman finds romance with Willie Nelson.

August’s tweets from London’s Singing Organ-Grinder

Bit late. Twitter trouble. Apologies for any distress caused. Money-back guarantee applies.

The true origins of an 18th century tomb inscription at Zennor, Penwith, Cornwall

“‘Tis glorious misery to be born a man,” generally taken to refer to a hen-pecked husband, is in fact a misquotation of verse by the 17th century Romford and London poet, Francis Quarles, dealing with human mortality.

Organ-grinding tweets for March 2018

The latest barrel organ news from Hackney, London.

Section of London-Harwich in 1675, crossing the River Lea at Bow.

Organ-grinding tweets for August 2017

The latest barrel organ news from Hackney, London.

He would an elegy compose / On maggots squeez’d out of his nose

Samuel Butler on a writer of doggerel.