Life
Dear Mary: How do I get my masseuse to stop talking?
Q. Our two daughters often bring friends down for the weekend. These friends are more than welcome; we enjoy their…
Why the Reds have got the blues
Not so much the hair dryer: more a gentle home perm. Contemplating the increasingly less youthful visage of Ole Gunnar…
Why lockdown sceptics like me lost the argument
I’m optimistic that the government won’t implement ‘Plan B’, let alone impose another lockdown — but not because sceptics like…
Dregs of fake Provence: Whitcomb’s reviewed
Whitcomb’s is in The Londoner hotel on the south-west corner of Leicester Square. The Londoner calls itself ‘the world’s first…
Can men be witches?
‘No, darling, I certainly wouldn’t call you a witch,’ said my husband. ‘You’re not thin enough.’ The Oxford English Dictionary…
2527: The main dilemma - solution
The question posed by the song is 11A/ 22A/37A. Suggested by 37A, other unclued lights were anagrams of words meaning…
No. 677
Black to play. Turner–Jackson, Hull 4NCL GM Tournament 2021. Which move did James Jackson play to ensure a decisive advance…
2530: Ups and downs
Clockwise round the grid from 2 runs a quotation (5,3,3,5,6,4,3,4,3,3,4,5) followed by the poet’s first name. Her second name is…
The Varsity match
Anyone who has attended the Varsity chess match knows that an online version just wouldn’t be the same. The annual…
Life amid Catriona’s cleaning regime
Earlier in this run of glorious October sunshine I was languishing on the bed in the middle of the afternoon…
Bridge | 30 October 2021
It was great to be back playing live bridge at the Portland Club last week. I was lucky enough to…
A brace of new books worth the space in any racing library
In 1986 a young Mark Johnston, having acquired a derelict yard on the Lincolnshire coast, phoned the Jockey Club to…
Aussie Life
Go on, admit it; just when you thought it was safe to go back to the pub, or the office,…
Aussie Language
Andrew Bolt, among others, has been scrupulous in drawing our attention to what he calls ‘race baiting’. For example, Greens…
Bridge | 23 October 2021
YAY! We won the Gold Cup! We played Tim Leslie’s strong team in the 64-board final and beat them on…
Africa’s empty vastness has vanished under the concrete of the present day
Kenya When I was a child in Kenya, the road from the Indian Ocean up to Nairobi was still…
No. 676
White to play. Bjerre–Maiwald, Bundesliga 2021. Black has menacing counterplay, so White’s attack needs an accurate conclusion. What did he…
Eaten by a bear
I don’t like losing at chess. It feels bad in the moment, whether my position subsides like a failed pudding,…
Spectator competition winners: odes on the Marble Arch Mound
In Competition No. 3221, you were invited to submit an ode on the Marble Arch Mound. The 25 metre-high artificial…
2526: Everybody out! - solution
The unclued lights are preceded by ALL (with the title suggesting that ALL is to be omitted). The paired lights…
The poor are too busy trying to make a living to be angry about the global rich-poor divide
New York ‘The City of London is hiding the world’s stolen money’, screams a Bagel Times headline, as bogus…
If a bloke can wear stockings and suspenders in a stable yard why can’t I?
We had gone to visit a friend at a stable yard on a country estate on a crisp autumn Sunday.…
2529: Formerly
The unclued lights (five of two words which include three apostrophes) can be preceded by the same word, all confirmed…
My happiness has given way to a paralysing melancholy
From our hypothetical drone-mounted camera let us look down into a secluded valley in the same series of valleys as…
Vega Sicilia: the best Spanish wine I have ever tasted
Four hundred and fifty years ago this month, a great victory helped to safeguard European civilisation. The battle of Lepanto…
