Life
Are we overusing ‘overhaul’?
Last week, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer were overhauling their stores. Football clubs were madly overhauling teams and we…
Hybrid chess
Chess was played by cable in the 19th century because… well, why not? And because everything old is new again,…
2506: Summer’s voice - solution
The unclued lights are ferns: RUSTY-BACK (26/5A), WALL RUE (48/7A), MAIDENHAIR (1D/11), OSMUNDA (18), BIRD’S-NEST (20/45) and POLYPODY (24). PTERIDOMANIA…
Henry James sells Heinz baked beans
In Competition No. 3201, a contest inspired by Salman ‘naughty but nice’ Rushdie, you were invited to submit advertising copy…
Thirty years ago, I saw the rebels take Addis Ababa
Kenya The evening before the assault on Addis Ababa, my guide Girmay and I ventured into a complex stuffed with…
2509: Current description
A six-word ‘current description’ (in ODQ) and the name of the author (three words) run clockwise round the perimeter starting…
No. 656
Black to play. Vocaturo–Gokerkan, May 2021. After a long defence, White’s last move 101 Nf1-e3 was a decisive error. Which…
Bridge | 5 June 2021
It’s hard to think of anything more expensive at the bridge table than doubling the opponents and then watching them…
The curse of surgical stockings
The porter rolled me off the trolley and on to the bed, wished me a good day and departed. My…
Why I finally succumbed to my musclebound osteopath
‘You’ll come back when you’re in enough pain,’ said the osteopath as I walked out of his door. That was…
The wine that links Thomas Jefferson, Charles II and Samuel Pepys
It seemed a suitable topic for a bank holiday. We were discussing Haut-Brion, a bank-breaking wine. There is a question…
Why night-clubbing in New York is a risky business
New York The acerbic writer Gore Vidal was once asked which period of history he would choose to have lived…
Aussie Life
It’s always sad to see the end of a love affair, particularly when the lovers had seemed so enraptured of…
Aussie Language
Writing in The Speccie Dot Wordsworth said: ‘The most effective weapon in cultural warfare is to find a form of…
For journalists like Protasevich, free speech is a matter of life and death
Last August I wrote a column in The Spectator’s US edition urging Donald Trump to take a leaf out of…
The Battle for Britain | 29 May 2021
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Daredevil kings
The fifth match game between Potter and Zukertort, played in London in 1875, saw a dogged struggle. The final position…
No. 655
White to play, Kharlov–Ernst, Haninge 1992. Black’s last move, g6-g5 was a decisive mistake. Which move did White play to…
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales retold
In Competition No. 3200, you were invited to retell one of Chaucer’s tales in the style of another author. The…
2508: Grovels
The unclued lights, (one pair, one hyphened and one of two words) are of a kind. One clue leads to…
Racing badly needs the full relaxation of restrictions
Humans are herd animals too. Jockeys, trainers, owners and those enjoying the few prized media attendance slots for racing behind…
New York resembles a war zone
New York The Big Bagel is getting so bad that even the baddies are demanding the fuzz do something. As…
Bridge | 29 May 2021
One of the pleasures of kibitzing online tournaments is that when an intriguing hand comes up, you can flick back…
How can we feed our horses when there’s no hay?
‘We’re closed for lunch,’ said the farmer, sitting behind the counter of his farm shop with a scowl on his…
For the sake of athletics, the Olympics must not be delayed again
Whatever became of athletics? It’s fallen nearly as far as show jumping and that is a long way. But the…
