Life
Why I am not drinking for the rest of the year
What a week this has been! What a great mood I’m in! Why, it’s almost like being in bed… with…
The anatomy of a Spectator summer party
I flew from Marseille to Gatwick, rode the Gatwick Express to Victoria, and walked down the thoroughfare of Victoria Street…
Is EE fantastic after all?
This was going to be about how a major phone company surprised me by delivering a fantastic service. I was…
Bridge
I have a horrible feeling my column this week is going to read like a mutual-back-scratch. In the last issue,…
Leningrad Lip
This description of Viktor Korchnoi was coined (an oblique reference to Muhammad Ali’s nickname of Louisville Lip) by Ian Ward…
no. 514
Black to play. This is from Karpov-Korchnoi, Dortmund 1994. In this unusual position Karpov has two queens but Korchnoi’s forces…
Closed shop
In Competition No. 3056 you were invited to submit an elegy on the death of the High Street. Your…
2367: When pigs fly
Five unclued lights form a quotation from a work concerning the 18 of 19, 15A and 23. The 18’s name…
to 2364: Frolicsome Threesome
WEIN (2D) suggests 21, 35 and 37 (German wines); WEIB suggests 10, 25 and 42 (Germanic female names); GESANG suggests 14,…
Video games like Fortnite are fun — so they must be bad
It was only a matter of time. The headteacher of a primary school in Ilfracombe in Devon has banned ‘Flossing’,…
The Battle for Britain
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The true winner of this World Cup? Russia
Like most people with any taste, I like the odd vodka, I love Crime and Punishment, I enjoy Turgenev and…
Dear Mary: How do you deal with a monologuing fellow guest on board a yacht?
Q. A long-standing friend has an admirer of some means. He has invited her to borrow his fully staffed and…
A Wimbledon-themed tea has little to do with tennis, but I loved it: Claridges reviewed
Claridge’s is a toff sanctuary and one of the best hotels on earth. It specialises in its own myth, which…
Has Boris brought ‘turd’ back into polite society?
I have never lost my admiration for Boris Johnson’s summary of British ambitions over Brexit as ‘having our cake and…
The limitations of left-wing hacks
Oh, to be in England, and almost die of heat after the Austrian Alps. Yes, Sarah Sands was right in…
Up close with the Rolling Stones
At 7 p.m., panting, I knocked on the door of room 201 of the Hotel InterContinental, Marseille, expecting it to…
Sex and MOTs
Opening a button of my shirt to get the horse lorry through its MOT is the sort of thing I…
The happiest Royal Ascot in memory
Let’s get the crowing over first. The returns from our Twelve to Follow over jumps last season were somewhere well…
Bridge
The Hubert Phillips is a knockout tournament unlike any other. First it is mixed — there has to be at…
We still have Paris
The second leg of this year’s Grand Tour was contested in Paris, almost immediately after Leuven. For Paris, Anish Giri…
no. 513
White to play. This is from Nakamura-Kramnik, Paris Blitz 2018. The third victim of Nakamura’s hypnotism was Vladimir Kramnik who,…
Question time
In Competition No. 3055 you were invited to take a well-known figure on the world stage, living or dead, and…
2366: The square
Three items (one consisting of three words, and two consisting of four words each) read clockwise round the perimeter. Part…
to 2363: Case ending
In Henry VI part II, Dick says to Cade: ‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’, thus…
