Life
Long life
Here I go again. I have stopped smoking. Until recently I had been smoking about 40 cigarettes a day, but…
Long life
Here I go again. I have stopped smoking. Until recently I had been smoking about 40 cigarettes a day, but…
Low life
Putting old or contaminated petrol in a car needn’t be catastrophic, but in the Golf’s case it was. With 37,000…
Low life
Putting old or contaminated petrol in a car needn’t be catastrophic, but in the Golf’s case it was. With 37,000…
Box set
There is no chance whatsoever of box set being replaced by the more correct form boxed set. So stop seething…
Real life
When in India, I always appal my highly educated tour guides. They despair of me, as they drag me round…
Three sides to our success
In the middle of Oxford is a socking great cinema: once the Ritz, it’s now an Odeon multiplex. Back in…
The Islamist Nazis and Corbyn’s wilful blindness
Many people watching Jeremy Corbyn’s interview on Marr last Sunday will have been shocked by his remarks about the need…
The Islamist Nazis and Corbyn’s wilful blindness
Many people watching Jeremy Corbyn’s interview on Marr last Sunday will have been shocked by his remarks about the need…
Small wonder
Cheltenham, Ascot and Sandown Park are wonderful but without the little tracks racing would be lost. It was perishing cold…
Small wonder
Cheltenham, Ascot and Sandown Park are wonderful but without the little tracks racing would be lost. It was perishing cold…
Bridge
The New Year got off to a great start with TGR’s annual auction pairs, the best run tournament I have…
A tale of two families
Gstaad War and Peace has been in the news lately, so what was it that Leo wrote about all happy…
My six-year-old grandson got Grand Theft Auto, certificate 18, for Christmas
I was at home in Devon for the month of December. My sister was also there and her tyrannical, wildly…
The rights agenda is a game of scissors paper stone
All disputes are now a clash of rights in which both sides compete to see who has the greatest claim…
When Mickey Rooney came to Milton Keynes
Before the start of Aladdin in Milton Keynes this week a promotional video showed Brian Blessed in oriental costume bellowing…
A close encounter with a puff adder
On New Year’s Day I took the family out for an evening walk on the ranch. Along the verges, lush…
Bridge
Forgive me for the outdated, clichéd expression but …GIRL POWER! The surprise winners of last weekend’s TGRs auction pairs were…
Paul stories
An excellent recent article by Dominic Lawson in Standpoint magazine reminded me of the greatness of Paul Keres. The Estonian…
No. 391
White to play. This is from Fischer-Benko, US Championship, New York 1963. The obvious 1 e5 is successfully parried by 1…
Macaronic
In Competition No. 2930 you were invited to submit up to 16 lines of macaronic verse. A dictionary of poetic…
2243: Obit III
Last year we lost a popular 39 of stage and screen. 18A/16 (four words in total) and 10/18A/15 (five words…
Christmas crossword solution
The grid quotation was from the JOURNEY OF THE MAGI (T S ELIOT). Initial letters of superfluous words spelled out…
Christmas crossword: The winners
The first prize of £100, three prizes of £25 and six further prizes of the Chambers Dictionary of Great Quotations (2015)…
Tell the truth about benefit claimants and the left shuts you down
Next month sees the release of Trumbo, a biopic about Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood…
