Life
High life
I’m sitting in my office and the place is still. The rest of the house is dark. Everyone’s out and…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
‘Emmanuel Macron est le plus grand con du monde,’ said the elderly gent taking the vacant seat on my right…
Compliance
Ralph Bathurst was accused shortly after his death in 1704 of being ‘suspected of Hypocrisy and of mean Complyance’. I…
Real life
A gentleman on Twitter ‘writes’ to say I’m boring him with my house move. ‘Snooze-fest’, says this chap, and he…
It’s time you made some enemies, George
Dear George Osborne, I thought it worth passing along some advice about your new job. I’ve never edited a news-paper,…
The MBA idiocies that ruin everything
I rang a company’s call centre the other day, and the experience was exemplary: helpful, knowledgeable, charming. The firm was…
Wild life
Laikipia, Kenya On my way home to the ranch, I stopped for a beer with my neighbour Martin. It was…
Bridge
Janet likes to tease me that whenever it’s my turn to write this column, it ought to be renamed The…
Catalan
The Catalan opening looks as if it should be relatively harmless, combining as it does the Queen’s Gambit with the…
no. 455
White to play. This position is from So–Kramnik, Gashimov Memorial 2017. So retreated with 1 Ne3 and eventually won. How could…
The turf
Any of us can forget little things on leaving home in a hurry. To the chagrin of Mrs Oakley, who…
Bridge
Last week we played round four of the Gold Cup. I had eagerly looked at the email to see who…
Bugged
Polish grandmaster Akiba Rubinstein was one of the strongest players never to win the world title. Up to 1914 he…
no. 454
Black to play. This position is from Belsitzman-Rubinstein, Warsaw 1917. How did Rubinstein finish off? Answers to me at The…
Ribaldry
In Competition No. 2995 you were invited to submit ribald limericks as they might have been written by a well-known…
2307: Obit IV
Clockwise round the grid from 16 run the titles of four works (4,4,9,6,1,5,3,5,3,4,6) by a late great 3 (two apostrophes)…
to 2304: Hexagon
The HEADWORD (26) ‘bail’ appears six times in CHAMBERS (1D). Its different meanings include CROSSPIECE (1A), BAR (25), FRAME (36),…
Dear Mary
Q. New colleagues invited us to lunch but didn’t warn us that the clippings had not been cleared up from…
Fowl play
Cafe Football is in the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London, a shopping centre with a faulty name. It…
High life
Twenty-five years ago this week, Los Angeles was burning because of Rodney King’s beating at the hands of the fuzz,…
Low life
I went to a barbecue. Everyone was patient and well disposed towards the silent, depressed, two-toed sloth in their midst.…
Jane
‘What are you laughing at?’ asked my husband in an accusing tone on Monday morning last week as he unloaded…
The age of Joshua
Every so often comes a moment that can set the history of sport on a different trajectory. I believe we…
A progressive alliance? It’s more a coalition of chaos
My heart soared when I first heard the phrase ‘progressive alliance’ in this election campaign. Not the reaction you’d expect,…
