Life
Monster mash-up
In Competition No. 3010, a nod to the late, great George Romero, you were invited to provide an extract from…
Dear Mary
Q. I was brought up to stick rigidly to any invitation accepted and never to ‘chuck’ when a better one…
Wuthering
Haworth is in a constant simmer of Brontë anniversary fever. It is looking forward to Emily Brontë’s 200th birthday next…
The romantic king of clubs
We were discussing romanticism, with me arguing that it should be confined to the boudoir, the bedroom, the library or…
Bridge
The Andrew Robson Bridge Club in Parsons Green deserves its huge success. The standard may not be as high as…
Test of time
Last week I pointed to the fact that games played at accelerated time limits are acquiring an official imprimatur that…
no. 469
White to play. This is from Anand–Caruana, St Louis 2017. Can you spot White’s incredible winning move? Answers to me…
2322: In memoriam
A pair of unclued lights (three words in total) give an event. Remaining unclued lights, including a pair (three words…
to 2319: poem III
The poem was Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’. The words from the poem are LEGS (16), TWO (17A), SANDS (26), NOTHING (37), KING…
High life
Greece is jasmine, bougainvillea, mimosa, cypress, olive, pine, oregano and sage, rock, sand, wine, fruit and the bluest and cleanest…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
My grandson and I are reprising the 1968 film The Swimmer. Burt Lancaster is an advertising executive at a pool…
Real life
Like Steve McQueen gone slightly to seed, the builder boyfriend strode off into the sunset. Nothing becomes him so much…
Don’t like our diversity agenda? You’re fired
Earlier this week, a technology website published an internal memo written by a Google employee called James Damore criticising the…
Sutherland’s Law of Bad Maths
Imagine for a moment a parallel universe in which shops had mostly not yet been invented, and that all commerce…
Quotidian
In Competition No. 3009 you were invited to submit a poem about a domestic object. I set this challenge…
Dear Mary
Q. I’m shortly to host a very large family gathering. Everyone will be related to the same ancestor, so we…
to 2318: Groundwork
SOIL (9) — cryptically indicated by ISLAND IN THE SUN (1A), the title of a SONG (40) recorded by HARRY…
Greenland and India
‘Remember what the fellow said — it’s not a bally bit of use every prospect pleasing if man is vile,’…
2321: Cleaner
One unclued light, defined by the title, is a word that can be divided into three words; each of these…
A menu for the emmets
Tate St Ives is a pale 1980s block, with a fat rounded porte cochère and sea-stained walls. It is the…
High life
I’ve stayed far away from the new barbarians with their choppers, tank-like cars, home theatres on board, and fridge-shaped super…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
Five and the Red One are a German covers band. It’s probably the most uninspiring name for a rock band…
Real life
‘This situation is Rorke’s Drift,’ said the builder boyfriend, after our proposed renovations were objected to at the parish council’s…
