Life
2463: Tongue twisters
The unclued lights are of a kind and are entered in the grid in a thematically appropriate manner. Across 11…
No. 610
White to play. Grischuk–Aronian, Clutch Chess 2020. Only one rook move draws here. Which one? Answers should be emailed to…
Lockdown Diary
90 Days in lockdown – a retrospective Day 1 – you configure your bathroom into a replica of your…
The death of free speech
Oh, to be in America, where cultural decay and self-destruction compete equally with hyper-feminist and anti-racist agendas. Gone with the…
My organ donation opt-out hell
Opting out of organ donation was one of the hardest things I’ve done in a while. I don’t mean the…
Dear Mary: How can I accept a party invitation when I don’t know who’s going?
Q. I know it is rude to ask, when invited to a dinner party, ‘who else is coming?’ I assumed,…
The antibody test that proved my wife wrong
Back in April, The Spectator ran a feature in which the partners of regular contributors wrote about what it was…
More drug than nutrient: KFC drive-through reviewed
Drive-through restaurants were invented so Americans could spend more time in their cars. I don’t blame them. American cars are…
Was Priti Patel really ‘gaslighting’ MPs?
Gaslight has been a useful word meaning ‘to manipulate a person by psychological means into questioning his or her own…
Cars weren’t invented for transportation, but conversation
When I first heard Abba’s magnificent 1982 swansong ‘The Day Before You Came’, I’d never come across the Americanised use…
Is left the new right?
I took a table on the terrace of the reopened bar and ordered une pression from the waitress. ‘Back to…
‘Your guts will form a stinky pool’: Roald Dahl explains Covid-19 to children
In Competition No. 3153 you were invited to recruit a well-known children’s writer to explain Covid-19 to their young audience.…
Chequered histories
As statues are scrutinised, the tensions that existed within historical figures are thrown into relief. You can admire Churchill’s leadership…
Bridge | 20 June 2020
I am so useless in defence it’s embarrassing. My partners all say the same thing: slow down and think. I…
2462: Over and Out?
The seventeen entries with definition-only clues are to be treated according to a symmetrically disposed theme which has to be…
No. 609
White to play. Tolush–Aronson, Moscow 1957. Strangely, this quick win was once wrongly attributed to Alekhine. How did White exploit…
2459: 22 down solution
22D was TABLEWARE, and the quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson reads: ‘The louder he talked of his honour, the faster…
The Battle for Britain | 20 June 2020
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No. 608
Black to play, Ding Liren–Daniil Dubov, Lindores Abbey Rapid Challenge, May 2020. Dubov’s rook is under attack, but his next…
Bridge | 13 June 2020
Have you ever been at a bridge event and heard someone exclaim: ‘He Grosvenor’d me!’ They are referring to a…
Lindores Abbey online
The Lindores Abbey Distillery in Fife, Scotland was an idyllic setting for an exciting rapid event last year, won by…
The pleasure and pain of staycations
In Competition No. 3152 you were invited to supply a poem about the joys — or otherwise — of the…
Recollections of Burgundy
More than two months: who would have thought it possible? Before the great closure, I had been trying to decide…
2461: Hot off?
The unclued lights (individually or four pairs) lead to a word or phrase which includes a thematic component. Across 1…
An elegy for Vienna
Vienna Somebody once described Vienna as a top opera performed by understudies. The remark was unquestionably witty, but utterly false…
