Life
Long life
The Eurostar train descended gently into the Channel Tunnel, went halfway along it, and then stopped. There it remained for…
Long life
The Eurostar train descended gently into the Channel Tunnel, went halfway along it, and then stopped. There it remained for…
Low life
Rachel Johnson, in last week’s Spectator diary, says that her husband says she only writes a book in order to…
Low life
Rachel Johnson, in last week’s Spectator diary, says that her husband says she only writes a book in order to…
Due diligence
No doubt you, too, have had the feeling, upon glancing at an article in a paper picked up in a…
Real life
This much I know, I never want to live in an ‘executive home’, and neither do I want to live…
Giving up alcohol is not as much fun as I’d hoped
Two months ago, I set myself the target of losing 11 pounds in time for the Spectator’s summer party on…
Giving up alcohol is not as much fun as I’d hoped
Two months ago, I set myself the target of losing 11 pounds in time for the Spectator’s summer party on…
Just giving
Seven years ago I wrote here about a site called Kiva.org. I had met the co-founder of this charity when…
Me, Jeremy Clarke and a bottle of absinthe
Last Wednesday, 24 June, Pugs held a luncheon in honour of our first member to depart for the Elysian Fields,…
Drugs, whipping, decomposing bodies and fighting in toilets: so that’s what Spectator readers get up to
Ninety-two readers (thank you!) sent accounts of their worst debacles on drink or drugs. I printed out each one and…
Pampered middle-class pooches are in charge of their owners
Why won’t the middle classes shout at their dogs any more? My suspicion is that the bleeding heart liberals, having…
The pointlessness of outlawing hogging the middle lane
It is nearly two years since the police were granted new powers to fine motorists for ‘hogging’ the middle lane…
Ryan Moore is the new Lester Piggott
Nothing pleases the Royal Ascot crowd more than a winner for the meeting’s crucial supporter, the Queen. Imagine, then, the…
Bridge
A feast of bridge is looming! Tromso in Norway is host to the Open European Championships starting on Saturday, and…
Tempus fugit
In serious competitive chess the play is regulated by time limits for completion of the moves. In the mid-19th century,…
No. 368
White to play. This position is from Vachier-Lagrave-Caruana, Norway Blitz 2015. How did White finish off at once? Answers to…
Off colour
In Competition No. 2903 you were invited to provide an extract from an article in an interiors magazine featuring some…
2217: Poem
Unclued lights (one hyphened) are words from a poem whose subject appears in the completed grid. A clued light is…
To 2214: What’s Up?
The theme word is CLIMBER. All unclued lights are therefore entered going upwards. There are three different types of climbers:…
In defence of Michael Gove’s grammar guide
Few things are more likely to provoke the disapproval of the bien-pensant left than criticising someone’s grammar. The very idea…
Battle for Britain
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The twilight of Tiger Woods
A car crash is a terrible thing, but hordes of people still slow down to cop an eyeful on the…
Dear Mary: My husband has shaved his head for a newspaper feature
Q. My partner, a leading political commentator on a national newspaper, recently agreed to shave off his hair at the…
The new Ivy doesn’t have the old magic (if there ever was any)
The Ivy is a Playmobil-style faux-medieval restaurant in a triangular building opposite The Mousetrap; of the two, The Ivy is…
