Life
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…
2505: Endgame - solution
The unclued lights are the final headwords for B, D, E, F, S, T, U, W, as listed in Chambers.…
A taste inquisition on Stink Street
Walking up through the Stink Street medieval arch with a bag of shopping, I spotted Michael between the oleander branches…
Bad food is back: The Roof Garden at Pantechnicon reviewed
The Roof Garden is a pale, Nordic-style restaurant at the top of the glorious Pantechnicon in Belgravia — formerly a…
Dear Mary: should we exclude our friend for not having had his Covid vaccine?
Q. Once restrictions are lifted, our annual walking group has planned a week’s walk with after-walk gatherings in a different…
How the Great British Bake Off inspired Great British Railways
‘Why didn’t they call it Very British Railways?’ asked my husband. Unwittingly (as in most of his remarks), he had…
Aussie Life
Unlike most of the panellists on The Gruen Transfer, I still make ads for a living, and try to exercise…
Aussie Language
The Australian Breastfeeding Association has declared the word ‘mother’ to be ‘non-inclusive’. Does this make linguistic sense? Not for a…
The social tyranny of singing ‘Happy Birthday’
Among the horrors, some aspects of lockdown were bizarrely less gruelling than expected; indeed for some people, the experience was…
No. 654
White to play. Cochrane–Bonnerjee, 1852. Out of eight discovered checks with the knight on e6, Cochrane found the only one…
