Life
High life
Gstaad Back in the good old days a funicular used to take skiers up, bucking all the way and stopping…
Low life
All told, I find that in the last week I’ve slept with a Chinaman, three black women from the United…
Low life
All told, I find that in the last week I’ve slept with a Chinaman, three black women from the United…
Pick
I have long pondered the motive with which Michael Wharton, for long the author of the Daily Telegraph’s Peter Simple…
Real life
Shoot me if I ever let slip I’ve been mucking out with rubber gloves and a dustpan and brush. As…
Three cheers for rugby’s Italian loophole
A friend was at Twickenham on Sunday sitting not far from the Italian coaching top brass, Conor O’Shea and Mike…
Why didn’t I listen to the Old Devil?
When Kingsley Amis won the Booker prize for The Old Devils in 1986, he said that he had previously thought…
Why didn’t I listen to the Old Devil?
When Kingsley Amis won the Booker prize for The Old Devils in 1986, he said that he had previously thought…
The turf
When the generals have lost heart and crept away from the battlefield it is hard for the ground troops to…
The turf
When the generals have lost heart and crept away from the battlefield it is hard for the ground troops to…
Bridge
February is probably the most exciting and glamorous month in the bridge calendar. A couple of weeks ago, über-sponsor Pierre…
Bridge
If there’s one tournament I’d really like to play in, it’s the Cavendish in Monaco, the largest money bridge tournament…
The Battle for Britain
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Blazing Sadler
Matthew Sadler’s retirement from full-time international chess is one of the great losses to the British game. Occasionally, the one-time…
no. 445
Black to play. This position is from Morozevich-Sadler, Reykjavik 1999, a game from Sadler’s heydey, when he was regularly beating…
You’re toast
In Competition No. 2986 you were invited to submit a poem about a deadly foodstuff. My inspiration for this…
to 2295: Juicy
The shared name was PERRY (18), shared by GRAYSON (28) Perry and Perry MASON (2). GP, whose alter ego is…
Dear Mary
Q. I’ve listened to the radio to deal with insomnia for years (Dear Mary, 18 February) and your suggestion of…
2298: NOᴎ
The unclued lights (one of two words), correctly paired, are of a kind and are defective in the same way.…
Thank God for overpriced lawyers!
When you buy a house in Britain, there is an extensive and well-established series of checks you must perform to…
Cats and clarets
Call me a sentimental old whatever, but watching a four-year old hearing The Tale of Samuel Whiskers for the first…
High life
From my chalet high up above the village, I look up at the immense, glistening mountain range of the Alps,…
Low life
I stepped off the train in Barcelona at 7.30 in the evening and followed directions to the hostel. The February…
Curry favour
The number of things I don’t know is infinite — or infinite minus one, if such as number exists, since…
Real life
Unexpectedly re-available is a very good phrase. I have often seen it applied to house advertisements and thought how fabulously…
