Life
2545: With a twist - solution
Suggested by 41, the other unclued lights were worms entered backwards in the grid. To comply with the preamble, 6…
England-Sweden Challenge
Three summers ago, I was invited to the Swedish city of Eskilstuna, for a brief but exciting match against their…
Is ours the oddest high street in the land?
The window of the new shop was as brightly coloured as a circus entrance, and stuffed full of items bearing…
Where Eddie Jones is going wrong
Rugby Union, bloody hell. We’ve got to talk about Eddie, but before that, what about something much cheerier? Just when…
2548: Poem VII
Unclued lights are nine words taken from a poem whose first three words (as quoted in ODQ) will appear in…
No. 695
White to play and mate in 2. Composed by Bo Lindgren, Probleemblad 1969. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by…
The Battle for Britain | 26 March 2022
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Bridge | 26 March 2022
The England U26 juniors have been flying high lately. A couple of weeks ago they won the Junior Camrose, and…
The call of a blackbird’s full-throated song
Speaking pretty good English, Dr Tayeb came straight to the point. Was I eligible for the ground breaking new cancer…
Aussie life
Prime ministers rarely lose elections by bungling a single issue. An obvious benefit of the four-year term is that if…
Language
According to news reports Vladimir Putin expected his invasion and conquest of Ukraine to be a ‘cakewalk’. This is originally…
Establishing Rapport
Richard Rapport took first place at the Fide Grand Prix in Belgrade last weekend. The Hungarian grandmaster is now almost…
The folly of Nato enlargement
If western universities were not brimming with leftist professors, the present situation in Ukraine would surprise no one. History would…
No. 694
White to play. Rapport-Rogic, Austria 2010. Black threatens Qa1+ and then Rxf2+, so Rapport must strike at once. Which move…
Bridge | 19 March 2022
I still haven’t got over the novelty of sitting down at home, opening my laptop, and – just like fantasy…
The ancient origins of ‘doomscrolling’
In 2019, Boris Johnson hit out at ‘the doomsters and the gloomsters’. I was surprised then to find that the…
A toast to the platonic ideal of diplomatic intellect
My dear friend Richard Stow is a most congenial fellow. A serious financial entrepreneur, he is also a clubman and…
The Battle for Britain | 19 March 2022
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2547: Ascending order
The (unrelated) unclued lights (one of three words, four of two words, (one with an apostrophe), one pair and two…
The link between motorway service stations and shortages of PPE
I spend quite a lot of time attacking what I call ‘motorway service station’ path design. More attentive readers of…
He knew a swan from a duck: remembering Andy Turnell
You don’t always have to win to enjoy it. At the end of the £100,000 Paddy Power Imperial Cup at…
Dear Mary: how can I avoid splitting the bill?
Q. These days I am on a tight budget while many of my friends are still able to spend freely.…
My football analogy for the free speech debate
By the time you read this the new draft of the Online Safety Bill should be on the DCMS website.…
The magical kitschiness of black forest gateau
Kitsch is something of my stock-in-trade. And it doesn’t get more kitsch than Black Forest gateau. Pots of cream, pints…
I stink at virtue signalling
The lodger looked at me blankly and pronounced wearily, as though intoning something he was tired of parroting, that I…
