Life
The importance of selective inefficiency
Readers of a certain age may remember choosing a cassette player in the 1980s. In theory the process was simple:…
Dear Mary, what do you do when you can't read the replies to a wedding invitation?
Q. How can I discipline inconsiderate people who do not reply properly to wedding invitations? I am being driven demented…
What to drink when you're on a cloud of post-election euphoria
Most of my friends are still on a cloud of post-election euphoria. There is one exception: those involved with opinion-polling.…
Mind your language: Heritage this and heritage that
Benidorm has applied for World Heritage status. To achieve this, says Unesco, a site must have ‘outstanding universal value’ in…
Battle for Britain
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Reichenbach falls
The former world champion Vladimir Kramnik recently espoused an opening system which I elaborated in a tournament in Germany in 1975.…
Puzzle no. 363
White to play. This is from Kramnik-Svidler, Russian Team Championship, Sochi 2015. The black pieces are in a tangle and…
21st-century Belloc
In Competition No. 2898 you were invited to give an update on one of the children in Cautionary Tales who…
Your problems solved
Q. How can I discipline inconsiderate people who do not reply properly to wedding invitations? I am being driven demented…
Let’s drink to a Tory majority
Most of my friends are still on a cloud of post-election euphoria. There is one exception: those involved with opinion-polling.…
High life
This is as good as it gets. A light rain is falling on a soft May evening and I’m walking…
Long life
I have rather a poor record for speeding over the years. I have been caught by cameras quite often, sometimes…
Long life
I have rather a poor record for speeding over the years. I have been caught by cameras quite often, sometimes…
Low life
From somewhere in the tree canopy, a nightingale song. The virtuoso trilling and warbling, the underwater bubbling, the teetering on…
Low life
From somewhere in the tree canopy, a nightingale song. The virtuoso trilling and warbling, the underwater bubbling, the teetering on…
Heritage
Benidorm has applied for World Heritage status. To achieve this, says Unesco, a site must have ‘outstanding universal value’ in…
Real life
You can’t always get what you want. And you can never get what you want if you want a phone…
Freedom for free schools
I was disappointed to hear Andy Burnham on Marr last Sunday declare his opposition to free schools. He put plenty…
Freedom for free schools
I was disappointed to hear Andy Burnham on Marr last Sunday declare his opposition to free schools. He put plenty…
The importance of selective inefficiency
Readers of a certain age may remember choosing a cassette player in the 1980s. In theory the process was simple:…
Wild life
Nairobi Trout were first introduced into Kenya’s highland streams in 1905. Men like Ewart Grogan, ‘baddest and boldest of…
Take it from Taki: this could be the start of something really big
OK. Magnanimity in victory is a sine qua non among civilised men and women, so let me not be the…
A tale of two cruises
I’ve been on two cruises before: one was fun, the other misery. The misery one was a late August cruise…
My rich leftie neighbours must be in a state of psychotic denial — or stoned
The ‘I’m Voting For Chuka’ posters in my rich neighbours’ front windows pushed me over the edge. There is nothing…
What Italy made of the result of the British general election (not much)
On election day I was in Puglia in the ‘heel’ of Italy, where interest in British politics could hardly be…
