Life
My miraculous winning streak
Last Saturday morning, Mo Gawdat, former chief business officer at Google, was on the radio explaining his algorithm for happiness,…
Bridge
The Norwegian Bridge Press Association’s annual prize for the best-played hand was a particularly hard-fought contest in 2018. Boye Brogeland…
A tale of two tournaments
The start of the year sees the elite of the chess world divided between Wijk aan Zee in Holland and…
no. 539
Black to play. This is from Howell-Bilguun, Gibraltar 2019. How can Black play for the win? Answers to me at…
Tweet beginnings
In Competition No. 3083 you were invited to submit a poem or a short story that begins ‘It started with…
2393: Monster Mash-up
1D (two words) 15 10 26 né 21 died on 2 February. Most famous for 7A 37 and 14, he…
2390: Tea Shop
The theme word is GRASS (for which the title is a cryptic clue). 1A, 1D, 6 and 37 are informers;…
An inconvenient truth: white children are underperforming everyone else in UK schools
The Department for Education (DfE) published its finalised data on the 2018 GCSE results last week, revealing that, for the…
Battle for Britain
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Why HS2 doesn’t stand up to the test of time
In past years, I have been a critic of HS2. I might now change my mind. One simple tweak might…
Dear Mary: Should I ever tip at a private club?
Q. I am an artist living in the UK and was charmed to be invited by a fellow artist, a…
Is wine an art?
Acouple of lawyers were disagreeing about a matter which could become increasingly relevant. Could a sitting president pardon himself? But…
Names, like drink, go by fashion
‘Sounds like fun,’ said my husband, wearing a hat with the sign ‘Irony’ in its band. He had read a…
My hero Roger Federer
Asked how he was feeling as he was about to give a speech to a ladies group, Mark Twain, looking…
When a reader invited me to stay with him in Exmoor estate, how could I refuse?
My first night back in Blighty, I sat all evening at the kitchen table drinking wine with a charming, courteous…
Surrey’s Gore-tex-collar crime wave
The frustrating thing about rights is that when you give them to people they don’t cherish and appreciate them. They…
Bridge
Zia Mahmood is as famous today as when I first met him 20 years ago. Not only is he still…
Game changer
Game Changer, the long-awaited book by Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan, has now appeared. This represents the most thorough inside…
no. 538
White to play. This is from Carlsen-Rapport, Wijk aan Zee 2019. The influence of AlphaZero is being felt at elite…
Happy talk
In Competition No. 3082 you were invited to write a poem taking as your first line ‘Happy the man, and…
2392: Beknighted
The unclued lights, two of two words and the remainder when paired, are of a kind. Across 1 No…
to 2389: All change
The paired unclued lights are anagrams of one another, most being symmetrically arranged; 2/21, 5/23, 12/41, 15/25, 19D/20. First prize Alan Peevers,…
The media were guilty of their own ‘fake news’ when it came to protesting schoolchildren
Donald Trump is often criticised by liberal news organisations like CNN and the New York Times for resorting to the…
The Battle for Britain
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When trans sportsmen and women compete, can it ever be a level playing field?
Amid the many splendours of West Side Story is this lyric: ‘My sister wears a moustache, my brother wears a…
