Life
Low life
The temperature gauge needle heeled hard over into the red. ‘Not again,’ I said to Oscar, sitting beside me on…
Tube
When George Eliot wrote ‘The tube-journey can never lend much to picture and narrative,’ she was not making an observant…
Wild life
Laikipia Ripping up the black cotton soil on the farm’s high savannah I get a sense of what it must…
Raising the threshold crappiness
I love anything open late at night. Never mind ‘the sigh of midnight trains in empty stations’; even mundane activities…
Get a life
In Competition No. 3018 you were invited to take your lead from Meik Wiking — CEO at the Happiness Research…
Dear Mary
Q. We have moved from London into a rural area where we are preparing for the first visit of a…
Real life
How reassuringly like old times it is, going to a God-forsaken retail park with Stefano. We mooch about the DIY…
Boris, the conviction politician
I’m writing this from the Conservative party conference where I can report that Boris Johnson, who has just wowed the…
Bridge
Twenty-five years ago, Zia Mahmood offered a £1 million bet that no team of his choosing could ever be beaten…
Historic
Congratulations to the organisational team of the Isle of Man Masters, which concluded last weekend. They assembled what must have…
no. 477
White to play. This is from Anand-Esserman, Isle of Man 2017. White now killed off the exposed black king. What…
to 2327: Exhibition
Five unclued lights (1D, 14, 21, 24 and 41) are titles of paintings by EDWARD HOPPER (5 39). First prize…
High life
The death of the richest woman on this planet, as the tabloids dubbed Liliane Bettencourt, brought back some vivid memories,…
The pride of Australia
When she graduated from university in Australia, Sarah Crowe decided to travel. So she sold her car, raised whatever other…
2330: Image
10 5/9/34/30D/7/35/4/1D is a poem quoted in full in ODQ. The author’s surname (and indeed first name) appears at 26.…
Venice all tarted up
Veneta is a Venetian restaurant inside the St James’s Market development south of Piccadilly Circus. I do not like this…
On the house
In Competition No. 3017 you were invited to submit a sonnet containing household tips. You were on sparkling form…
Dear Mary
Q. How can I avoid becoming seen as an ‘Instagram creeper’? My well-meaning niece tells me that I’m in danger…
High life
I think this week marks my 40th anniversary as a Spectator columnist, but I’m not 100 per cent certain. All…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
As is traditional in this village, the Chapel congregation had walked the 100 yards up the hill to unite with…
Boo
In 1872, the 27-stone figure of the Tichborne Claimant was insisting he was Sir Roger Tichborne Bt, an heir thought…
Real Life
Assuming someone had moved house before, and put a new boiler in their new house, while remaining a customer of…
All power to the NFL knee protest
The history of sport and political protest in this country would be a slim old volume. It would feature quite…
Don’t let these figures depress you, girls
Are British teenagers suffering from an epidemic of mental illness? Yes, according to a ‘government-funded study’ which found that 24…
