Life
Unauthorised version
In Competition No. 3081 you were invited to supply a parable rewritten in the style of a well-known author. Like…
Stout and bubbly
According to Brewer, a five-word phrase was used to describe a creature, but applies also to a three-word fictional character.…
solution
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT Unclued lights were names of GHOST STORIES by M.R. (MONTAGUE RHODES) JAMES: CASTING (1A) THE (29) RUNES…
Yes, the Brexit debate is robust – but UK politics is moderate, calm and civil
There’s a scene in Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about the collapse of western civilisation, in which a…
The Battle for Britain
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Why it’s so much easier not to speak to people
I recently saw a series of photographs depicting a rural home in China. Pride of place in a grimly furnished…
Dear Mary: We have new friends but can’t bear to eat in their filthy kitchen. What to do?
Q. I note that (Dear Mary, 12 January) you advised your correspondent, resentful of Christmas expenditure, to offer instead ‘mutual…
Forget Dry January – if there was ever a month to drink, this is it
January really is the cruellest month. No wonder some fortunate friends have dodged the column of dreary weather and short…
What lies behind John Bercow’s use of the word ‘colleagues’?
The parliamentary press gallery has in the past given a pair of silver shoe buckles to the Speaker as a…
Why 1919 wasn’t the year it’s cracked up to be
Gstaad The funny thing is that I was at school with a man called Ted Widmer, and I recently read…
I ended New Year’s Eve more sober than I started it
We were eight for dinner on New Year’s Eve: four men and four women with a combined age, I would…
The Kafkaesque nightmare of cancelling my BT broadband
Oh, I suppose I might as well give it a whirl, I thought, as the recorded voice began its dirge:…
Why former prisoners make the best lawyers
Kampala I am terrified of being with former death-row prisoner Susan Kigula. This is because she qualified for her…
Bridge
For those of us who play rubber bridge at TGR’s, the New Year began with the very sad news that…
Three titans
The Dutch grandmaster Genna Sosonko specialises in biographies of the greats of the Soviet era. His earlier forays covered the…
no. 536
Black to play. This position is from Botvinnik-Smyslov, World Championship, Moscow (Game 18) 1958. How could Smyslov have forced instant…
The ex factor
In Competition No. 3080 you were invited to supply an elegy on a piece of obsolete technology. Thanks to Paul…
2390: Tea shop
Unclued lights, all confirmed in Chambers or Collins, are three sets of four words of a kind, each set relating…
to 2388: Sea rocket
The quotation was ‘IN MY BEGINNING IS MY END’ (12/15) from East Coker (an anagram of the title), second poem…
The unending war against masculinity and men
For the first time in its history, the American Psychological Association (APA) has issued guidelines for mental health professionals working…
Battle for Britain
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If ever a man deserved his gong, it’s Sir Alastair Cook
Here’s a date for the diary: if you’re in south London on 11 April, head for the Oval. It’s going…
Dear Mary: How do I get an answer from my elusive publisher?
Q. What is the current etiquette regarding chasing an opinion from a publisher to whom, by agreement and via a…
This is a restaurant for affluent halfwits: Bob Bob Ricard reviewed
In January, you could go to Bob Bob Ricard in Soho. I do not know why it is called Bob…
Illeism: the weird habit of talking about oneself in the third person
Someone has been putting about reports that Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, refers to himself in the third person as…
