Life
The Battle for Britain
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Watch out comrade: big business is turning communist
Is it me, or is business becoming a teeny-weeny bit Stalinist? Common features include 1) Paranoia about political ideology; 2)…
Dear Mary: How can I weed out the party ‘flakes’?
Q. I invited four younger colleagues, all in their mid to late thirties, to go for a meal at a…
The great Seven Stars – but not, alas, its furry bar staff – is immune to change
Roy Hattersley once wrote a plangent passage about a painful aspect of the human condition: the short span of animals’…
1880s slang: How to fig a nag and pitch a snide
‘I want my money back,’ said my husband. ‘This is from the 1880s, not the 1980s.’ He looked up from…
My marriage secret? I’m a faithless husband, but a good one
This was a real surprise, and on my birthday (11 August) to boot: a grown man, whose parents I used…
A spiritual journey to see some very expensive paintings
The Villa Carnignac art gallery is located on a Mediterranean island off the French Riviera called Porquerolles. Purpose-built to show…
I am high as a Kite on gloss paint (excuse the pun)
After I had been glossing the woodwork for a few days, I started to feel light-headed. It hadn’t occurred to…
I’m taking the bull by the horns and heading to the prize show
Laikipia ‘This year we’re too broke to take our cattle to the show,’ I told Mark. For six months we…
Bridge
Long-married couples are notoriously intolerant of one another at the bridge table. It’s as if all their pent-up irritation comes…
Royal road
The mathematician Euclid once boldly informed King Ptolemy Soter I of Egypt that there was no royal road to geometry.…
no. 520
White to play. This position is from Nakamura-Mamedyarov, St Louis 2018. Unfortunately for Mamedyarov, he has just blundered in a…
Where there’s a Will
In Competition No. 3062 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean-style soliloquy that a contemporary politician might have felt moved…
2373: Susurrus
Unclued lights are three groups of three words of a kind, each group defined by the name of a different…
to 2370: Problem XII
The numbers were linked to titles of classic works of FICTION (12): The Two DROVERS (26) (Walter Scott), The Three MUSKETEERS…
Jamie Oliver’s jerk rice comes with a side serving of insanity
Earlier this week, the Labour MP Dawn Butler ‘called out’ Jamie Oliver for ‘appropriation’. His sin, according to the shadow…
The Battle for Britain
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
The baby who could transform English cricket
Alice Cook’s impending third child could turn out to be the perfect delivery for England. Already the expectant father Alastair…
Dear Mary: How do we evict a narcissistic flatmate without starting World War III?
Q. I live in a houseshare with two other people; one of whom I am very fond of and the…
Empty restaurants are becoming a bad habit of mine: Coq d’Argent reviewed
I wouldn’t normally visit Coq d’Argent, which I think means the chicken of money. It is a moderately famous restaurant…
Why would you relish an opportunity?
The Sun gave a sad picture of British loneliness recently in a report about the national yearning to play a…
The case for bringing back feudalism
Gstaad I need it like Boris needs a bleach job. Another birthday, that is. Birthdays tend to make your life…
Why the kindness of strangers trumps a pagan festival
The entire Alpine village, contemptuously dismissed recently in an online tourist guide as a nondescript centre of old peasants and…
Why won’t anyone live with me?
When I placed an advert for a lodger I really did expect potential tenants to want to come and see…
Racing for the app generation
Making racing profitable depends on getting information at the right time. In the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood two Saturdays ago…
