Life
Dear Mary
Q. As an artist I’m indebted to my sponsor. I also like him, but not his habit of ringing me…
Eat at Joe’s
It is rare for me to write a love letter to a London restaurant, but Joe Allen, which is 40…
The Battle for Britain
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Low life
Repatriated after two months sur le continong, I walked down the sunny high street marvelling at English cheerfulness. A poster…
St Thomas’s
Everyone praised the staff of St Thomas’s Hospital during the terrorist attack. My husband of course brought his own fly to…
Real life
Of all the many indignities I have suffered at the hands of my iPhone, the humiliation that sickens me the…
Liverpool’s press mess
The comedian Jimmy Carr is not necessarily a guy you would trust on much, but he was spot on the…
The bawdy and beautiful game
I can barely contain my excitement. The Easter break is nearly upon us and I will soon be heading off…
The turf
Bookmaker Paddy Power once famously declared, ‘Cheltenham is the best craic you can have and if you cannot look forward…
Bridge
‘Ducking is for experts. Don’t try it.’ So says my partner Artur Malinowski every time I duck a trick in…
Fifty glorious years
Whatever else you may say about it, the USSR certainly created the greatest national chess-playing machine the world has ever…
no. 450
Black to play. This position is from Gligoric-Stein, Moscow 1967. Can you spot Black’s winning coup? Answers to me at…
These foolish things
In Competition No. 2991 you were invited to submit an April Fool disguised as a serious news feature that contains…
to 2300: The law
Extra letters in clues give CONSTABLES, defining 7, 21 and 39. Other unclued lights are CONS (12, 16, 18) and…
High life
Gstaad It’s my last week in the Alps, and the snow is gone, replaced by brilliant sunshine. Silence reigns, broken…
Bridge
Everyone knows him, but hardly anyone can pronounce his name — which is why Jacek Pszczola is universally called Pepsi.…
Pauline conversion
Paul Keres is the only chess player to have appeared on the euro currency, his face adorning the two-euro piece…
no. 449
White to play. This position is from Mareco-Nakamura, Pro-League, chess.com 2017. Can you spot White’s winning coup?Answers to me at…
A to P
In Competition No. 2990 you were invited to submit a poem of 16 lines in which the lines begin with…
2302: Urbane turban
The solutions to twelve clues, all of which lack definition, have to be adapted as the title indicates before the…
to 2299: Pieces of Eight
The unclued lights, including 28/3 in its English translation, are compositions by Carl Nielsen, (i.e. pieces of 8 Down). First…
Dear Mary
Q. We had some people up from London for a very long weekend. We put on an extra-special do, costing…
The fall of Paris
Paris used to be the most self-confident city in the world. Brash, assertive, boastful: Manhattan claimed to be the best.…
High life
A cloudless sky, crunchy spring snow, longer, warmer days. I’ve finally got in some good skiing, twisting around moguls like…
The Battle for Britain
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