Life
Temper, a new pizza restaurant in Covent Garden, land of the itinerant rich
Temper is a new pizza restaurant in Mercers Walk, Covent Garden, and it is as glib and polished as you…
‘Crest’ and the absurd language of heraldry
A friend of my husband’s, yet a well-educated man, said in conversation as we walked to Tate Modern: ‘Is that…
Sailing past the charred eastern coast of Greece
On board S/Y Puritan I’m sailing off the charred eastern coast of Athens where so many died last week,…
Confessions of a cave-dweller continued
The cave house next to ours is let out to weekly renters. A green-eyed German with a ponytail came out…
The only guarantee I have is that there is no guaranteeing my guarantee
Beko. I always want to sing that song by Peter Gabriel from the movie about the South African freedom fighter…
The man who rode 2,300 winners
On a foggy November day in 1965 the young son of a Barbadian police chief was one of six contestants…
Bridge
It’s that time of year again — summer and its attendant holidays. No bridge for me for a month, unless…
Rice gambit
The recent successful revival of the musical Chess, by Sir Tim Rice and the men of Abba, featured some genuine extracts…
no. 517
Black to play. This position is from the classic game Réti-Alekhine, Baden Baden 1925. What was Black’s next move? It…
That’s chemistry
In Competition No. 3059 you were invited to supply a poem inspired by the periodic table. The writer and chemist…
2370: Problem XII
Fans of classic 12 will know that where ‘Q’ = ‘the number of’: Q26 x Q1D x (Q34 + [Q36D/5A…
to 2367: When pigs fly
The quotation ‘NEVER (1A), NEVER (35), NEVER (41), NEVER (7), NEVER (32)!’ is from King Lear (V.iii.310). Lear was the…
Joining the Twitchfork mob is not the answer
This summer has seen yet another group of thought criminals being mobbed on social media. Some of them are the…
The battle for Britain
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There is nothing that makes you more anxious than being rich
H.L. Mencken once said that a rich man is anyone who earns more than his wife’s sister’s husband. The anthropologist…
Dear Mary: Help! My husband won’t wash his hands after going to the loo
Q. My husband doesn’t wash his hands after spending a penny and he doesn’t wash his hands after ‘spending tuppence’,…
The pleasures of mindful drinking
When I was at school, some time before the last ice age, the final day of term was a quasi-holiday.…
Signage
My husband, in company with a similarly superannuated medic on the unfamiliar London Underground, was bidden at Baker Street to…
The books and novelists I have read
Reading is the best antidote to debauchery I know of, and I’ve been hitting the books lately. History mostly. Once…
At 62, I’m looking for a hole in a rock
Towering above this medieval French village is dun-coloured cliff of volcanic rock, dramatically floodlit at night, topped by two ancient…
Stefano is a tonic, and I love him
Stefano came back to paint the front of the house. I have never been so pleased to see his red…
Wild life
Maasai Mara Last night the hyenas made off with our fudge cake. We are camped with a group of…
Bridge
It’s hard to explain to non-bridge players just how all-consuming this game is. For those of us who move in…
Fiend from Hull
This year’s British Championship commences today in Hull. Among a powerful field, which includes Michael Adams and defending champion Gawain…
no. 516
Black to play. This position is from Brown-Adams, British Championship, Bournemouth 2016. Black has various ways to force mate but…
