Life
Bridge | 17 July 2021
If someone had told me in February 2020 that virtually the whole world would be going into lockdown for well…
Walking the Somme
Where the 36th (Ulster) Division attacked at 7.30 a.m. on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme in…
We have incurred the wrath of the shoot boys
Since telling the shoot we won’t let them use the land we rent, we have been beset by a series…
The wine that made me change my mind about rosé
Some time ago, I wrote that rosé should only be drunk south of Lyon, but one could start on the…
A brief history of harlots
I write this as a follow-up to last week’s essay on muzzling after making whoopee. I’m on my way to…
Kiwi Life
One of my goals over the coming months is to watch an entire rugby game for the first time in…
Aussie Language
We are told that sexual assault and sexual harassment happen because men don’t understand consent. NSW has a law before…
The 4,000 spectators at Sandown Park weren’t short-changed
When only four horses were declared to contest this year’s Coral Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, there were the usual…
Help! I’m restaurant-phobic
Vernon fancies this new age elfin-faced French woman who owns and runs a restaurant. She’s hard-working, she’s a reader, and…
Why I’ve gone off country sports
‘Oh, I do so love to see all the lovely pheasants running around the place,’ said the lady walking the…
Do the England team play football, footer, footie – or soccer?
I have never been a soccer mom, described in the Washington Post as ‘the overburdened, middle-income working mother who ferries…
How to have an affair
Gstaad After six-and-a-half months apart, I had no trouble recognising my wife. Out she came on to the driveway to…
An utterly convincing dreamworld: The Ritz reviewed
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Bridge | 10 July 2021
Top bridge players have a spooky ability to recall thousands of hands, often from many years back. With so many…
The world has a new youngest grandmaster
Abhimanyu Mishra became the world’s youngest grandmaster last month, at 12 years and 4 months old. The boy from New…
2514: Welcome back
Unclued lights (one of two words, the others paired) are of a kind. Across 7Lace branches left in fruit tree (6)…
2511: Changing places - solution
The unclued lights form pairs of anagrams, one word in each pair being a place-name: 1A/6A, 1D/21, 6D/13, 11/38, 19/30…
Dear Mary: How do I get my neighbours to tidy their front gardens?
Q. I live in a row of town houses with a communal strip of garden in front. Three of the…
The Battle for Britain | 10 July 2021
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My battle to be top dog
Even a small dog can be quite high maintenance. No, I’m not talking about Mali, our one-year-old cavapoochon, but Bertie,…
The real sporting star of this summer
Think of a punishing distance for a bike race. Double it, multiply by ten, throw in two of the world’s…
No. 661
Black to play. Daggupati–Mishra, Charlotte 2020. 1…Rf1+ 2 Kg2 is a dead end, as White’s queen covers the f2 square.…
Sonnets on the universe
In Competition No. 3206, you were invited to supply a sonnet on the universe. The late Frank Kermode reckoned that…
Aussie Life
The only time that the BBC has ‘emu-lated’ an Australian broadcaster was in the early Seventies, when it suspended its…
Aussie Language
‘Muck-raking’ is an old journalism expression coined in the US around 1900 to describe two types of journalists: a) those…
