Life
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…
Klopp’s childlike enthusiasm – and incalculable savviness
Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…
How two children vanished for a week en route from Africa to London
As we all know by now, the pandemic distorts time like a concertina. Life before March is a world that…
It’s time for lockdown lovers to accept that the fun is over
My friend turned up wearing a snorkelling mask, beneath which she had tied a bandana around her mouth. On her…
How not to run a literary festival
Gstaad A friend of mine who lives here wants to start a literary festival and asked me if I had…
We’re facing a tsunami of censorship
It’s open season on mavericks and dissenters at the moment. If you publicly challenge any of the sacred nostrums of…
No. 611
White to play. From the ridiculous to the sublime. According to the ‘Chess Notes’ website, a game won by Edward…
2464: Topsy-turvy
14 which is unclued below, but is clued elsewhere, has to be divided into three components (one a Spanish…
2461: Hot off? solution
The unclued lights include the name of a British daily newspaper; 3/26A, 9/35, 12, 24, 28/31D and 34/21. First…
Poems about picnics
In Competition No. 3155 you were invited to supply a poem entitled ‘The Picnic’. This challenge was prompted by a…
Twitch pageant
Chess has much in common with video games — not least, the eager disdain of uninformed critics. An 1859 article…
Aussie Life
Everyone wants to get high and have sex while saving money. So says P. J. O’Rourke, the political satirist who…
