Life
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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Girls
Sir Roger Gale sounds like an old-bufferish knight of the shires, but he once worked as a disc-jockey on a…
Real life
‘Mesdames et messieurs, allow me to introduce you to your meals,’ said the waiter. Oh lordy, I thought. Here we…
The liberals and the deplorables
In America, an argument has broken out among journalists, writers and intellectuals in the aftermath of the presidential election about…
How I learned to love the airport bus
After landing at Gatwick, the plane taxied for five minutes or so and then came to a halt in the…
Low life
My joints were aching suddenly and unaccountably — fingers, wrists, elbows, knees, toes — so I cried off the dinner…
High life
At a chic dinner party last week, a friendly chow as big and black as a dog can be without…
Low life
After circuiting Spain by train, I went east to Italy, stopping on the way at the French border town of…
Meet with
Don’t tell my husband, but I have been having doubts. (He never reads this column, so our secret is safe.)…
Real life
Someone has given the builder boyfriend an iPhone and things will never be the same. Until now, he has always…
Was it football or just mutimillionaires cheating?
Few sporting events in history have been greeted with such swivel-eyed, table-pounding hysteria as Barcelona’s comeback to overturn a 4-0…
