Life
Dear Mary: How do we stop chatty workmen from disturbing us?
Q. I have been working (from home) for a TV comedy production company for a year. My job is scouting…
The Battle for Britain | 3 April 2021
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Fortune favours the brave
If you wish to unsettle your opponents, first attack them and second, play the moves quickly. It’s far from easy…
No. 647
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by B.P. Barnes, Skakbladet 1961. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk…
Spectator competition winners: animals get their revenge on humankind
In Competition No. 3192 you were invited to submit a short story that features an animal (or animals) taking revenge…
My French lesson has taken a most unexpected turn
‘Alas, David can’t be here this afternoon,’ I told the French teacher as she let me into her light and…
Bridge | 3 April 2021
These days, most tournaments take place either on Bridge Base Online or Realbridge. I far prefer BBO for one reason:…
How not to walk a dog
Watching a woman driving a dog past my house like a carthorse is just another ‘new normal’ of lockdown. This…
The secret of Ireland’s racing success
How Father Sean Breen would have loved this year’s Cheltenham Festival. The late parish priest at Ballymore Eustace, who owned…
2497: Scramble - solution
Six of the unclued lights are RAF stations of WW2. First prize Kathleen Durber, Stoke-on-Trent Runners-up Alison Gillam, Knotty Green,…
My password amnesia got me into hot water
Chelsea/Gstaad Oh, to be in England! But let’s start at the beginning. I challenge any reader to claim they are…
2500: 50 x 50
Each solution contains one letter at least once, always omitted in the cryptic wordplay of each clue. This letter and…
Aussie Life
I’m back from Sydney and just coming out of my drunken stupor – a 12-hour bender at a resuscitated Qantas…
Aussie Language
The word ‘independent’ has been part of the English language since 1612. So how can anyone be confused about its…
The terror of seeing my dog attacked
I was walking with our one-year-old cavapoochon on the way back from the baker’s in Acton on Sunday morning when…
Dear Mary: how do we deal with a neighbour who is stealing our friends?
Q. A dear friend of long-standing has a propensity to make friends of our friends — people she has first…
The tyranny of French bureaucracy
Applying for a French bank account is like trying for a permit to open a Christian bookshop in North Korea.…
The ugly truth about natural horsemanship
The rope riders came down the driveway slowly, their horses veering this way and that, side to side, forwards a…
The Battle for Britain | 27 March 2021
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Vibrant
‘Think yourself lucky,’ said my husband when I told him about poor John Stuart Mill’s mother, who had nine children…
Finally la Vendée has a winemaker worthy of its traditions
A year of lockdowns has certainly passed slowly. But there are topics for thought. One disappointment has been the Church…
2496: Depart Paddington - solution
The play was The Winter’s Tale by Shakespeare. The perimetric dramatis personae are MAMILLIUS, LEONTES, FLORIZEL, DORCAS, MOPSA, HERMIONE and…
Mother Nature is giving us her middle finger
Gstaad I have never experienced such a long, continuous blizzard, and I’ve been coming here for 63 years. The ski…
2499: Entitled trio
The unclued lights, including three proper nouns (two of two words), consist of three groups of three words of a…
The bard responds to news that he has been cancelled
In Competition No. 3191 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy reflecting on the news that the Bard has…
