Life
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…
Dear Mary: how do I stop a Londoner dominating my village book club?
Q.A senior colleague, on discovering that I’m a friend of someone who has become quite famous, engaged with me warmly…
If Tony Blair was still prime minister, I’d be less terrified of Holborn Dining Room
The 1930s aesthetic is not quite as fun as it used to be. You can enjoy the detritus of fascism…
There’s something grotesque about the jargon of Universal Credit
The government (if it hasn’t fallen yet) has found difficulty moving people onto Universal Credit from the benefits that they…
Taki: Should I just move to a cave in France?
Gstaad Do any of you know what cisgender is? I just found out. Cisgender is a term that describes…
Hell — and heaven – on the French Riviera
We drove down from the hills to visit friends of friends with a house by the sea and on the…
Despite me virtually sexting him, my blacksmith is ignoring me — just like all the others before him
Splitting the atom is nothing compared to figuring out how to get hold of your farrier. Why is the farrier…
In defence of the Cheltenham Festival
‘Deer-stalking would be a very fine sport,’ W.S. Gilbert once observed, ‘if the deer had guns too.’ We who love…
Bridge
2018 ended on a very sweet note for my team. We played the London Year End one-day teams tournament —…
Knockout
The 2018 UK Knockout, won by Gawain Jones, ahead of Luke McShane (silver) and Michael Adams (bronze), was played in…
no. 537
White to play. This position is from Jones-McShane, UK Knockout, London 2018. White’s next move was the start of a…
