Life
Right to reply
In Competition No. 2917 you were invited to submit a reply from Andrew Marvell’s coy mistress. Marvell’s mix of cajoling…
Your problems solved
Q. A friend of mine is performing a recital in Dublin and has sent round an email advertising the time…
High steaks
Smith & Wollensky is a restaurant from The Shining: a terrifying American steak joint by the Thames, four months old,…
High life
If cheating is the cancer of sport, losing has to be its halitosis. I stunk out the joint in Amsterdam…
Long life
When Robert Peston, the economics editor of the BBC, interviewed George Osborne on television in an open-necked shirt with collar…
Long life
When Robert Peston, the economics editor of the BBC, interviewed George Osborne on television in an open-necked shirt with collar…
Low life
Every morning for the past two years, on waking, I’ve reached out for the white plastic tub on the bedside…
Low life
Every morning for the past two years, on waking, I’ve reached out for the white plastic tub on the bedside…
Critique
I lost my husband on the way from Malabar. He is easily lost. We had been talking about the verb…
Real life
At least two insurances are going to have to go, as I grapple with fear of penury, I have decided.…
Give Robshaw a break
Pity poor Chris Robshaw. England’s sturdy captain might have a knockout girlfriend and exceptional skills on the cappuccino machine, but…
The vision of Steve Jobs
Last week I went to a screening of Steve Jobs, the new biopic about the co-founder of Apple directed by…
The vision of Steve Jobs
Last week I went to a screening of Steve Jobs, the new biopic about the co-founder of Apple directed by…
Fair minded
One of Alan Bennett’s characters once lamented, ‘We tried to set up a small anarchist community …but people wouldn’t obey…
Fair minded
One of Alan Bennett’s characters once lamented, ‘We tried to set up a small anarchist community …but people wouldn’t obey…
Bridge
The 42nd Bermuda Bowl has kicked off in Chennai, and after several weeks of cheat-busting Boye Brogeland (‘The Sheriff’) has…
2230: Lot 46
The unclued lights, five of which are correctly numbered, are of a kind. Ignore one accent. Chambers does not include…
To 2227: Word building
The word pyramid runs from CAN at 7A, then 35, 36, 30, 5, 2, 21D, 19 to CONSIDERATE at 1A.…
It’ll be me vs Jean-Claude Juncker at the Judo World Championships
Gstaad Jeremy Clarke has wiped me out again, for a change. His accounts of the high jinks on board the…
Follow my grandsons on the trail of the last bear in England
I was looking after Oscar, my five-and-a-half-year-old grandson, for the day. We’d played football in the garden, then we’d come…
Balham is about as close as you get, in 2015, to the 1950s
After pulling out of my flat sale and U-turning on the idea of moving to the Cotswolds, it took me…
Why could a robot replace a police chief – but not me?
It’s hard to turn on the television nowadays without being shown a robot. It might be looking like a grasshopper…
I was petrified of the power of the Great Monition, the most terrifying curse of them all
Laikipia A lion has just mauled and partially eaten a warrior who tried to throw a spear in my…
Bridge
This has been the most shocking saga in the entire history of bridge. In the face of overwhelming evidence that…
Coincidence
My grandmaster colleague James Plaskett has two passions, the pursuit of the mythical giant octopus (ongoing) and a fascination with…
