Life
Bridge | 16 October 2021
The Gold Cup is the most prestigious Open Teams event in Britain, and has been ever since Colonel ‘Pops’ Beasley…
Charlie Appleby is the trainer to beat
I know what Keats was on about with his mists and mellow fruitfulness, but autumn is less of a joy…
Succession gets the rich and powerful all wrong
They have stepped into the pop-culture spotlight via the HBO hit Succession, a hatchet job on the very rich and…
Where did all of rugby’s fans go?
Could rugby union get any better? The entertainment in the Premiership is breathtaking and the overall product as good as…
The ground rules, from coffee to marriage
There’s a rude gesture in Pickwick that I don’t quite understand. Mr Jackson, a young lawyer’s clerk in conversation with…
Dear Mary: should I have asked out my rush-hour crush?
Q. On a train journey the other day I sat opposite someone I found immensely attractive. We struck up a…
The Batman restaurant that’s totally bats: Park Row reviewed
There is a Batman restaurant in London, or rather there was: Savini at the Criterion on Piccadilly Circus. Savini was…
The Battle for Britain | 16 October 2021
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Chicken Marbella
What is it about retro food? I don’t mean nostalgic food, from school dinner favourites to your grandmother’s signature dishes.…
‘Retain and Explain’ won’t end the culture wars
I’m sympathetic to Oliver Dowden’s formula for defusing culture-war disputes about statues of controversial historic figures: ‘retain and explain’. That…
Spectator competition winners: Newly discovered short stories by poets
In Competition No. 3220, you were invited to supply a newly discovered short story by a well-known 19th- or 20th-century…
The sudden mate
The hero pauses, plays the move, and announces ‘Checkmate!’ The villain crumples in shock. It’s a scene played out countless…
2528: Not to Lose
Unclued entries are words (one hyphened) or phrases (three of four words each, one of three words, two each of…
No. 675
White to play and mate in one. I found this puzzle online, composed by someone with the pseudonym ‘Illion’. I…
2525: Prime Times - solution
The [5 Down] MILESTONE puzzle number 2525 is the product of PRIME numbers 101 TIMES 5 TIMES 5, equivalently the…
Aussie Life
One of the most compelling things about Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, is the way we don’t…
Aussie Language
A new study by researchers at the University of Western Australia shows that the most trusted accent in Australia is…
The Battle for Britain | 9 October 2021
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Who let the dog out?
Caroline and I are just back from a weekend break in Scotland and, nice though it was, I hadn’t realised…
What exactly is the ‘festive season’?
‘Here you are, darling,’ I said to my husband. ‘These lines might have been written for you: “Drinke, quaffe, be…
I’d pick the Vero Beach retirement home for old ladies over Annabel’s
Around 20 or so years ago I had a point for match point on a perfect grass court at Fort…
The downfall of the French middle class
The chesty Corsican taxi driver was giving me his earnest appraisal of the way things were headed in France politically.…
The case for dodging cracks in the pavement
It is interesting to consider what would have happened if the Covid virus had emerged in 1921. Or 1821. Or…
No. 674
White to play. Mamedyarov–Artemiev, MeltwaterChampions Final 2021. Black’s last move, was Ra8-a4, attacking the pawn on g4. But it allowed…
Bridge | 9 October 2021
One of my favourite Bridge proverbs is ‘Play the card you’re known to hold’. It doesn’t mean we should blithely…
