Life
Driverless cars will make your life worse
On the face of it, there’s something quite appealing about driverless cars. It will be like having a chauffeur-driven chariot…
Cruel boy errors
Perhaps you are slightly concerned about your son. At present he is sitting in the crawlspace beneath your home wearing…
Wild life
Kenya A woman’s bottom cheered me up recently. The lady was walking ahead of me in a Kenya street and…
Bridge
I felt like an absolute hypocrite the other week. Sally Brock’s team had just beaten Alexander Allfrey’s in the semi-finals…
Some like it posh
Daphne’s serves Italian food in South Kensington. (I like the name because Daphne was the name Jack Lemmon chose for…
to 2279: Where it’s at II
The name was The Spectator. THESP (SARAH BERNHARDT: 37/19), EC (EAST CENTRAL: 36/20), TAT (HEMPEN MATTING: 5/15) and OR (LOGIC…
Real life
Against all odds, I almost got through an entire Brexit dinner with dignity, and without opening the valve in my…
Gamesters of Triskelion
I first encountered the Triskelion, the traditional coat of arms of the Isle of Man, when I saw Laurence Oliver’s…
Bridge
The Hubert Phillips is one of the EBU’s quirkier knockout tournaments. Firstly every team must contain (and play) at least…
No. 430
White to play. This position is from Mamedyarov-Kramnik, Moscow 2016. White’s next concluded the game. What was it? Answers to…
Long life
Monty Don, the television gardening presenter, always comes across on screen as irrepressibly cheerful and enthusiastic, but this is a…
Autumnal
In Competition No. 2969 you were invited to submit a poem about autumn in the style of the poet of…
The master of Ballydoyle
The only downside about going racing is irritation born of encountering pig ignorant people who talk through their pockets. Beside…
2282: Timely
Clockwise round the grid from 21 runs a timely quotation (9,5,3,5,2,7,3,11,5) (in ODQ) followed by the initials of its author,…
The Battle for Britain
The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment…
Polari
Of the contribution to English that Polari is claimed to have brought, perhaps naff is the most current-sounding. An older…
Sorry, Shami, but you’re wasting your money
I’ve been thinking about poor Shami Chakrabarti and the drubbing she’s suffered since it was revealed she’s sending her son…
Dear Mary
Q. My father has been on the warpath to eradicate Tineola bisselliella, the common clothes moth. He told me to…
High life
New York This is a good time to be in Manhattan, the weather’s perfect, the park and foliage still…
Low life
Six months ago Sally was living in a third floor flat in Glasgow. Then she was thrown into the back…
The waning of Wayne
As the final chords of the Wagnerian epic that is ‘The Dropping of Wayne Rooney’ fade away, we can leave…
The Battle for Britain
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Gamesters of Triskelion
I first encountered the Triskelion, the traditional coat of arms of the Isle of Man, when I saw Laurence Oliver’s…
No. 430
White to play. This position is from Mamedyarov-Kramnik, Moscow 2016. White’s next concluded the game. What was it? Answers to…
Autumnal
In Competition No. 2969 you were invited to submit a poem about autumn in the style of the poet of…
