Life
Spectator competition winners: Epicureanism vs Stoicism
In Competition No. 3320 you were invited to submit a poem extolling Epicureanism over Stoicism or the other way round.…
Aussie life
The death of actor David McCallum last week prompted me to google the theme music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,…
Language
A reader has asked me about the common expression ‘virtue-signalling’. The meaning, I think, is fairly clear. It is a…
2622: Local call – solution
The unclued lights are PUB NAMES which include the pair 38/31 First prize Mary Newbery, Devizes, Wiltshire Runners-up David Burnside,…
2625: Playtime
The unclued lights (one of two words) and four others clued without their thematic definition are of a kind. Across…
Tories know how to find themselves a good drink
I feel old, and feelings are not always wrong, This eheu fugaces mood came on me at the Conservative party…
Spectator competition winners: what Elon Musk’s home says about him
In Competition No. 3319 you were invited to supply a description of the house of a well-known figure from the…
Is there such a thing as too much empathy?
Back in the 1970s, a less politically correct age, there was a standby formula for television advertising known as 2Cs…
An injured hand has given me a glimpse of old age
I first realised something was wrong with my hand last Thursday evening. I’d been invited by a friend to go…
Aussie life
The word humble comes from the Latin humilis, or humus, meaning literally, soil or ground, a priest recently revealed in…
Language
Every so often I like to share with you new words being added to dictionaries. Dictionary.com has just added 566…
