Life
QPR beat Sunderland 1-0… but my own score has not been settled
Last Saturday was shaping up to be one of the best days of my life. Freddie, my ten-year-old son, had…
The Battle for Britain
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ISA and pension limits discourage ordinary people from saving
The maximum amount you can save in an ISA for the tax year 2017-2018 is now £20,000. The maximum annual…
How can I avoid power handshakes? They hurt my fragile knuckles
Q. How does one avoid power handshakes? Twenty-five years of wicket-keeping have left me with pathetically fragile knuckles, and each…
Big two-hearted river: the wines of the Rhône
The Rhône is a strong river. The Loire derives graciousness from its châteaux. The Rhine and the Thames have been…
My date with Steve Bannon
Gstaad The muffled sound of falling snow is ever-present. It makes the dreary beautiful and turns the bleak into magic.…
Was the easyJet representative a fascist?
Earbuds in. Speed walking to Grant Lazlo’s ‘Heard It Through The Grapevine’. A corridor, a left fork, a moving walkway,…
My unhealthy obsession with Brian May
‘I bet Brian May isn’t lying on his back in a field shelter wondering how long it’s going to take…
The wisdom of toads, termites and wait-a-bit thorns
Laikipia Off Madagascar the other day the Indian Ocean gave birth to a little storm called 11S. As its gyre…
Bridge
I’ve never forgotten a conversation I had some years ago with the talented, blunt-talking Norwegian player Espen Erichsen. We were…
Berlin
This weekend the Candidates tournament commences in Berlin to decide the challenger who will face Magnus Carlsen for the world…
no. 496
White to play. This position is from Mamedyarov-Savchenko, Moscow 2015. White’s forthcoming tactic led to a decisive material gain. What…
Six plus
In Competition No. 3038 you were invited to provide a (longer) sequel to the six-word story ‘For sale: baby shoes,…
2349: Novel
Clockwise round the grid from 3 run the names (7,4,5,6,8,8,5,6) of four characters in a novel followed by the initials…
to 2346: the name of the game
The unclued entries are all names for pontoon; extra words in 27, 31, 33, 34 and 36 needed the letters…
We are being destroyed by tribalism. Let’s get rid of it
Amy Chua’s latest book, Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, is a difficult read for anyone who…
The Battle for Britain
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Knighting Bradley Wiggins so early was just asking for trouble
The incomparable Roger Bannister, whose passing marks the end of our links with a vanished age of sporting innocence, could…
Dear Mary: My daughter’s new boyfriend isn’t on Facebook – how do I snoop?
Q. Recently I held a party at which some people were meeting each other for the first time. One social-climbing…
As restaurants go, it’s important – and it knows it: the River Café reviewed
Jilly Cooper’s fictional hero Rupert Campbell-Black has ‘never been to Hammersmith’. I have but I wish I hadn’t. I love…
We’ve been saying ‘wrap up warm’ for a thousand years
In June 1873, Oswald Cockayne shot himself. He was in a state of melancholy, having been dismissed by King’s College…
Taki’s guide to style
Gstaad They have busy eyes and the set of their mouths is that of a hungry carnivore. Their hands are…
From the First Battle of Ypres to Brexit
Poperinghe, Bailleul, Wytschaete, Gheluvelt, Ploegsteert, Messines, Zonnebeke, Passchendaele. The other week I grandiosely claimed that I have been reading about…
We are only one thank you away from killing one another
‘Good afternoon, my name is Bradley, and how may I be of help to you today?’ After you’ve spent ten…
How do you solve a problem like fixed odds betting terminals?
You can tell by the tone of the jokes how most occupations are regarded and we’ve all heard the traditional…
