Life
‘Bolection’ and how the language of architecture was moulded
A pleasant menagerie of words grazes in the field of architectural mouldings (the projecting or incised bands that serve useful…
A lament for the UK and the US
New York Here’s a question for you: if your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, toy boy even, lied repeatedly to…
Will the Mistral drive me to murder?
So far this latest Mistral wind has blown for two and a half weeks. The Mistral is said to blow…
I’ve reached scandal saturation point
A letter before action, or something that looked very much like it, arrived on my doormat from an insurance company.…
Farewell to the greatest jump jockey of all time
So the Silver Fox has called it a day. We will never see Ruby Walsh, the man whom even Sir…
Bridge
Imagine you are on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. You have just won £500,000 and cannot go home with…
Revolutionary
The French Defence appears to be somewhat cautious in nature but can in fact lead to disruptive middlegame clashes. It…
no. 553
Black to play. This is from Carlo-Haast, Grenke Chess Open 2019. There is a saying in chess that when you…
The full English
In Competition No. 3097 you were invited to submit a poem about Englishness in the style of a well-known poet.…
2407: Stickmen
The unclued lights, four of two words, individually or as a pair, are of a kind. Across 11 After…
to 2404: 1+2 = 3+4
The first and second letters of the unclued lights are the same as the third and fourth ones. All the…
The UN’s extinction warning doesn’t add up
Anyone watching the BBC’s News at Ten on Monday would have been surprised to learn that economic growth poses a…
The Battle for Britain
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Why don’t we see more big infrastructure projects?
In 2012 I finished a meeting in Berlin and headed to Tegel airport. Apparently mine was a historic flight, since…
Dear Mary: What should you do when friends invite you to lunch but don’t offer wine?
Q. I was invited to birthday drinks in London. On my way there the name of someone I haven’t heard…
Save us from fads and change for change’s sake
There is no new thing under the sun. Over the weekend, I read a book which was alarmingly relevant to…
Do MPs actually know what ‘fungible’ means?
‘No darling,’ I said, ‘nothing to do with mushrooms.’ My husband had responded to my exclaiming ‘What does she think…
Sebastian Flyte had nothing on me: memories of a misspent youth
Charlottesville is an enchanting Virginia college town graced by the neoclassical architecture of the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. I flew…
Meet Santini: the world’s worst tourist guide
Santino was unusually short in the leg and, in his mid-twenties, was already rapidly losing his hair. He had recently…
The NHS’s CBT mailshot is a scandal
A leaflet came through my door from the NHS inviting me to take part (if that is the right term)…
Why we should listen to elephants
Laikipia, Kenya ‘An elephant has fallen over,’ said the man running up to me. My first thought was that…
Bridge
‘You know what people say about you?’ Zia Mahmood told me the other day. ‘You play really well but then…
Déjà vu
In my column of 20 April I reported on the overwhelming victory by world champion Magnus Carlsen in the elite Gashimov…
no. 552
Black to play. This position is a variation from Keymer-Carlsen, Grenke 2019. Black is a piece down. What is the…
Cheesy feat
In Competition No. 3096 you were invited to submit a short story that ends ‘I feel like a half-eaten gorgonzola.’…
