Life
Aussie Life
Jordan Shanks is not your average lefty. This unusual Australian YouTuber, who goes by the name of FriendlyJordies, disdains such…
Aussie life
Like so many of us in these troubled times, I am worried about the family statues. The topple-mob cannot be…
The forgotten victims of communism
I just read a piece by Scott McConnell in the American Conservative, a magazine we co-founded 18 years ago. He…
The Streisand effect
There is no sight so compelling as one that would be hidden. I am fascinated by the Streisand effect, named…
Will Zooming replace real-life socialising?
‘Are you seriously telling me you would rather meet up on Zoom than in reality?’ I asked a friend as…
2465: Definitely amusing
Unclued lights (three of two words, two hyphened) have something in common, verifiable in Brewer. Across 4 Everybody agreed to…
No. 612
White to play. Giri–Nepomniachtchi, Chessable Masters 2020. Giri has sacrificed a knight to lure the black king forward. Which move…
2462: Over and Out? solution
The seventeen entries clued by definition only required removal of the abbreviation BR ( = Britain), in keeping with the…
Poems about schadenfreude
In Competition No. 3156 you were invited to supply a piece of verse or prose on the subject of schadenfreude,…
Aidan O’Brien’s Derby victory was an act of grand larceny
It wasn’t so much a Derby victory this year as an act of grand larceny. Aidan O’Brien isn’t just a…
Bridge | 11 July 2020
What goes through a world-class player’s mind when he or she stops to think for an age during a hand?…
My Great War obsession
Bernafay Wood B&B, Somme, France I came up on the TGV yesterday from the Midi to northern France and it…
The best wine since incarceration
The woodpecker jinked across the lawn like an especially cunning partridge. Its goal was a skilfully constructed bird table with…
Dear Mary: How can I leave a boring WhatsApp group without upsetting anyone?
Q. During lockdown I have done my level best to assist with household chores. Last week, while my wife was…
The increasingly irritating language of ‘love’
It is 17 years since we began to hear McDonald’s: ‘I’m lovin’ it.’ This was always annoying, but most of…
Does the curriculum really need ‘decolonising’?
Layla Moran, the Lib Dems’ education spokesman, has written to Gavin Williamson urging him to do something about ‘systemic racism’…
The Battle for Britain 11 July 2020
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Finally, we’re unboxing the teleporter
This week’s Wiki Man may read a bit oddly. You see, I haven’t ‘written’ it at all; I’ve dictated it…
Aussie Life
It has been brought to my attention that the rename Victoria suggestion I made in these pages two weeks ago…
Can a chef teach me to cook over Zoom?
We cannot bear more drive-through or take-out or near-fatal snack. I am convinced of the boredom of my female ancestors,…
Dear Mary: Will my lockdown appearance be too off-putting for the office?
Q. Just before Covid, we moved out of London with the intention of having a quiet life in the country.…
The Battle for Britain | 04 July 2020
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Does ‘swathe’ rhyme with ‘bathe’ or ‘moth’?
At Glastonbury in 2017 ‘a whole swathe of young people had a political awakening’, chanting ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn’, said the…
Bridge | 04 July 2020
What do we want? We want to play bridge. But who anticipated Covid-19 was going to close every bridge club…
Nuns, a maquisard and the Devil’s Own Rum: a Provençale pilgrimage
Avid Spectator reader Mr Brown had endured the very strictest of lockdowns for family health reasons in Tunbridge Wells. Since…
