Life
How a ‘back’ gets confused for a ‘bat’
My husband may not often be right, but he had some cogent criticism of the much-quoted words of Geoffrey Howe…
Aussie Life & Language
Giles Auty While clearing our cellar recently my wife and I came upon a compact printing press which her late…
Being a do-gooder did me no good at all
Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher, has a lot to answer for. Some armchair psychologists think the reason I…
Was the maskless man in my carriage dying of Covid?
A man without a mask appeared to be dying of Covid, or something quite like it, on the London to…
Foden and Greenwood’s ingenious Icelandic rendezvous
You suspect that a bar of duty-free Toblerone, no matter how supersized, wouldn’t really do the trick when hapless England…
Dear Mary: How can I get my social skills back after lockdown?
Q. I have just been out to my first lunch in months. Ten of us sat around a table in…
The apex of civilisation: the Connaught Grill reviewed
A ghost review, now, of a ghost restaurant: the Connaught Grill, which is yet to reopen after pandemic shuttered its…
The pleasures — and pain — of dog-walking
The old dog was in a companionable frame of mind and she trotted along at my side, glancing up now…
Bridge | 12 September 2020
The bridge world has lost some glittering stars this (ghastly) year, the latest being France’s Catherine d’Ovidio — multiple world…
From Covid to football, the rise in ‘upticks’
Political commentators love talking about the optics — the way something looks to voters. Just at the moment, though, everyone…
The Battle for Britain | 12 September 2020
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2474: Love me do
31 3 worked for the 43 of 21. The 43 of 34 got him for 24 35 and sent him…
Spectator competition winners: Would you give Anne Boleyn a job?
In Competition No. 3165 you were invited to supply a job reference for a well-known public figure, past or present,…
Trump should take lessons in lying from Joe Biden
Gstaad It snowed on the last two days of August up here, and why not? We’ve traded freedom of speech…
No. 621
Black to play. Rios–Adams, Online Olympiad, August 2020. The White king is running short of squares. Which move did Adams…
Internet trouble
It was as baffling to me as quantum entanglement. Every time the Algerian player on the Zoom call shared his…
2471: Inky solution
The unclued lights can be preceded by BLACK. First prize Stephanie Reeve, Papworth Everard, CambridgeRunners-up Hilda Ball, Belfast; Peter Chapman,…
Aussie Life
Peter Scammell There is no doubt that the corona virus pandemic is changing the way we live and think about…
Bridge | 5 September 2020
A major pandemic has been sweeping through the bridge world since the game went online — and it’s called cheating.…
The A272 is a relic of the golden age of motoring
In France I own a dented old Mercedes and in England a dented old Mitsubishi Carina. The Mercedes is parked…
Racing can’t survive without crowds
We all have weeks when every win bet finishes second and every each-way comes home in fourth. You begin to…
2473: May
The unclued lights (two of two words) are of a kind. Across 12 To make sense of Sun puzzle, many…
No. 620
White to play. Zaibi–Napoleao, Online Olympiad, August 2020. White has just sacrificed the rook on a1. He concluded the attack…
Spectator competition winners: patchwork poetry
In Competition No. 3164 you were invited to submit a poem in which each line comes from a different well-known…
Bob Geldof is an unconventional Zoom host
Gstaad I experienced my first Zoom conference last week, and didn’t think much of it. As the great Yogi Berra…
