Life
The difference between American and French wine-drinkers
Is it safe to visit the continent? On the one hand, abroad is likely to be less crowded this August…
Dear Mary: How do I tell my neighbours I forgot to feed their cat?
Q. We invited two friends to supper in London. As they came in they said they should order their taxi…
Why must we ‘live with’ coronavirus?
T.S. Eliot adopted a method of criticism that I am not aware of any other writer using: he imagined what…
The Battle for Britain | 8 August 2020
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Why our greatest inventors are supreme hucksters
People often tell me I have a strange way of looking at the world. Obviously, it doesn’t seem strange to…
Island life is not for me
Island of Serifos Let’s get one thing straight: island life is not for me. Island life off a boat, jawohl,…
If the office is ‘too dangerous’, why is everyone jetting off on holiday?
The whole of Surrey and south-west London seem to have gone abroad on holiday so I’ve got my sanity back.…
A lament for the foreign correspondent’s house – and his hospitality
Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur Until January the foreign correspondent lived in a late-18th-century house with a vineyard, olive grove and vegetable garden…
In a jam: what Goodwood did with 900 punnets of strawberries
It was to have been, if not a glorious return, at least an encouraging one. On the Stewards’ Cup day…
Bridge | 8 August 2020
Stuart Wheeler was a true original. I was lucky enough to be a friend (we met playing bridge), and will…
2469: Breadth
Unclued lights are anagrams of Shakespearean characters. These lights are defined by surplus words in eight clues. Across 1 Recreational…
No. 616
Black to play. Studer–Naiditsch, Biel, July 2020. White intends to meet 1…Bxb5 with 2 Bxe7 Qxe7 3 Qxb5, with an…
2466: Gender bender solution
The author was GEORGE SAND (19/26), whose original name was AMANTINE LUCILE AURORE DUPIN (25/40/5/16). The perimetric works are INDIANA,…
Spectator competition winners: killer short stories
In Competition No. 3160 you were invited to supply a short story whose opening sentence is ‘I have no idea…
The view from on high
‘Cabin crew, ten minutes to landing!’ Are there any more exhilarating words? Soon, for a few precious minutes, one can…
Aussie Life
Statue deconstruction is becoming the Anglosphere’s most popular artistic genre. So why are our local avant-garde artists lagging behind? Sculpture…
I love Greece and the Greeks but they have destroyed Athens
Athens This ancient city without tourists reminds me of the Athens I once knew and loved, but for the…
How to survive a heatwave
Provence-Alpes-Côte D’Azur A burning ball appears over the brow of the hill at seven o’clock every morning and then…
You can’t sing in church but you can get a tattoo
From my seat in the greasy spoon café I looked out on a typical English row of shops on a…
Solidarity in Soho: running a coronavirus testing centre
London Simon, proprietor of the sex shop opposite our Covid-19 testing centre in Soho, insisted on popping a pack…
Stringfellows with fish instead of women: Sexy Fish reviewed
Sexy Fish is an Asian fusion barn in Berkeley Square, near the car dealerships and the nightingales, if they are…
The magnificence of Carlos Brathwaite
We know about the endlessly jaw-dropping greatness of Ben Stokes (a peerage soon, surely), the furious power of a supercharged…
Dear Mary: What gift can you buy for the hosts who have everything?
Q. I am not expected to pay rent at the cottage which has been lent to me by a super-kind…
The Battle for Britain | 1 August 2020
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Might ‘may’ kill ‘might’?
‘I’m with the King,’ said my husband. The king in question was Kingsley Amis, whose choleric The King’s English was…
