Life
Let’s show vaccine passports for football fans the red card
As I’ve written before, the thing I’ve missed the most in the past 12 months is going to see QPR…
Spectator competition winners: a kiwi fruit for Emily Dickinson
In Competition No. 3194, a nod to Keats and Tony Harrison, you were invited to write a poem about a…
My return to New York is a mixed blessing
New York Ha, ha! What London turned down, the Bagel accepted with alacrity, namely the poor little Greek boy. And…
Bridge | 17 April 2021
I sometimes get far too intense when I’m playing bridge online. Holed up in my study at home, wearing noise-cancelling…
Dear Mary: How can we use our neighbour’s tennis court without inviting him to play?
Q. Our neighbours have a tennis court which, under the property’s previous owner, we enjoyed playing men’s fours on. The…
How ‘ACAB’ links David Bowie and BLM
A favourite piece of graffiti to spray on the Cenotaph or the plinth of Churchill’s nearby statue is ACAB. It…
Outs-rage: the dumbing down of cricket
So wickets are out and outs are in for the new Hundred competition. But why? The language of sport is…
Back to the future: Bentley’s Oyster Bar & Grill reviewed
The west end of London is still pale and necrotic, but there are points of light. Hatchards the bookseller is…
Hats off to Rachael Blackmore
Sporting heroes in our modern world have an extra burden to carry. Within seconds of their triumph, with the adrenaline…
Our doctor’s surgery is beginning to look like a Category A penitentiary
When the time came for the nurse to ring me to take my blood pressure, the phone simply didn’t ring.…
Mon dieu! Our French residency permits have arrived
For EU nationals living in Britain and wanting to legally remain after Brexit, a letter or an email was enough…
European Online Club Cup
Since the start of the pandemic, opportunities for serious competition between players ranked outside the world’s top 20 have been…
2499: Entitled trio - solution
The theme was C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 38A (of Scotland), 43A and 22D were all…
Aussie Life
Australia’s iconic hippie playground is in the news. This time it is not about real estate booms or Hollywood celebrity…
America isn’t speaking our language
I haven’t yet read the report published by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. But, looking at the recommendations,…
Dear Mary: How do I reject a wedding invitation without causing offence?
Q. I have just been invited to a wedding where the groom will be the only person I know. Much…
Spectator competition winners: royal clerihews
In Competition No. 3193 you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets, AABB, metrically clunky, humorous in tone) on members…
2501: Delightful
7 Down has wordplay to only half its grid entry. The undefined part is the first word of a 9-word…
2498: Cross-country - solution
The unclued lights consist of the names of two countries overlapping by two or three letters: eg 25D ‘JAPANAMA’ gives…
Bridge | 10 April 2021
Bridge is a complex game, and is played by humans. Put those two things together and you have a guarantee…
No. 648
Black to play. Livaic-–Oparin, Fide World University Online Championship, March 2021. After 1…Rxc5 2 Rxb4, a draw was soon agreed.…
Unfair play
Twenty players were disqualified from the Fide World University Online Championships, out of almost 900. Does that call for moral…
Remembering one of the last great Americans
It takes a very good writer to produce prose that provokes an emotional response in a reader, even when it…
The Battle for Britain | 10 April 2021
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‘Protect the NHS’ is all very well, but when will the NHS protect us?
After refusing to issue my HRT without a blood pressure test, the GP surgery rang to offer me an appointment.…
