Life
How Scotland humiliated England in the Six Nations
Outside the rugby superhighway of the A316, linking Richmond, Rosslyn Park, the Quins and HQ, it’s hard to imagine anyone…
Dear Mary: how do I stop a man making lewd comments?
Q. My wife’s closest friend and her husband visit us every couple of months or so. Without fail he will…
The four times I have lied in 42 years writing this column
Gstaad As Emperor Maximilian told his convulsed-by-tears servants as he was about to be executed by the Mexicans: ‘Who…
The travesties competing in the Terrier category at Crufts
Does the BBC suppose that it will convert the public to a belief in equality if it does not, in…
From a solar-powered bin to HS2: the destruction of my childhood home
My mother is a classy lady. I have always known this, but it still affected me in a way I…
While some bookies behave admirably, the BetBright debacle is a disgrace
Encountering a generous-hearted bookmaker is normally as rare an occurrence as finding a picture of the Duchess of Sussex without…
Bridge
James Vogl excelled at poker and backgammon and thought, like many of us, that when he took up bridge about…
Oxford win
The annual Varsity Match between Oxford and Cambridge ended in a surprisingly narrow victory for the dark blues. Their team…
no. 545
White to play. This is from Finn-Abbas, Varsity Match 2019. A strategic puzzle rather than a tactical one. White has…
Climate change
In Competition No. 3089 you were invited to put your own spin on a weather forecast. The seed for…
2399: Lines of work
Eight unclued entries (two of two words, one hyphened) form a folk rhyme used as the basis for the first…
to 2396: Reader …,
Unclued lights were husbands (40A) of Jane Austen’s heroines. First prize Alison Hinder, Sholing, SouthamptonRunners-up Janet Dibley, Polegate, East Sussex;…
Why is it only privately educated women who get to lecture people about ‘oppression’?
Scarcely a week passes without a privately educated young woman with a successful career in journalism publishing a book about…
The Battle for Britain
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Are IQ tests really the best way to measure nature vs nurture?
I have a dim memory from 1970 of a primly dressed distant relative visiting in a Baby Austin. This, I…
Dear Mary: what’s the polite way to ascertain someone’s gender?
Q. When my mother was widowed ten years ago she decided to take in lodgers to pay the gardener’s bills…
Red meat and red wine: the ideal way to spend the first Sunday of Lent
Life is far too important to be taken seriously. At least, that was the conclusion which we meandered towards as…
Why the OED says ‘coloured’ is offensive
‘The term coloured, is an outdated, offensive and revealing choice of words,’ tweeted Diane Abbott last week in response to Amber…
Watching my grandchildren schussing down a mountain is what makes me happy now
Gstaad As everyone knows, the definition of serendipity is searching for a needle in a haystack, and instead finding…
I hadn’t had a drink in six weeks but that was seven hours, three pubs and a club ago…
Standing in a messy kitchen at the tendril tip of a county line at three o’clock in the morning, Trev…
My life is like that new Netflix series Russian Doll – a series of recurring crises
Russian Doll is a brilliant new Netflix drama in which a woman relives the same night over and over again.…
For now, here in Laikipia we have the only population of black panthers in the world
Laikipia A female black panther was recently photographed at our neighbours’ place. Exactly like Kipling’s Bagheera, she was ‘inky…
Susanna Gross
Geir Helgemo is the most revered bridge player in the world — and that isn’t about to change just because…
Bunratty
The Bunratty tournament in Ireland is one of the highlights of the chess year and always attracts an impressive field.…
no. 544
White to play. This position is from Hebden-Williams, Bunratty 2019. How did White finish in fine style? Answers to me…
