Life
Why does Amazon think my friend is a kidnapper?
About four years ago, an irate father in Minneapolis walked into his local Target shop with a complaint. He wanted…
Dear Mary: Dealing with your old friends now you’re a big success
Q. Success has come to me in later life with an unfortunate side effect. Since my career has taken off,…
The real French embassy is a restaurant
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
Does Joey Essex know what ‘reem’ actually means?
Joey Essex is a celebrity who appeared in the ‘scripted reality’ programme The Only Way is Essex, named not after…
The real French embassy
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
The dark secrets that your clicks reveal
About four years ago, an irate father in Minneapolis walked into his local Target shop with a complaint. He wanted…
Wild life
Kenya It’s a long time since I thought of Thaddee, our Kigali stringer when I was covering Rwanda for Reuters.…
Unlike the philistine sharks of today, Aleko Goulandris is an art collector of the old school
Aleko Goulandris is my oldest and closest friend. We met in the summer of 1945, at the Semiramis hotel in…
I nearly went lost my mind in southern Spain on the trail of Gerald Brenan
Another writer I once liked very much is Gerald Brenan. Brenan served with distinction in the first world war and…
The impossibility of ordering the right-sized salad
People don’t listen. It’s a relatively new thing. People used to listen, to varying degrees. You had your good listeners…
A trip to Berlin with John Smith before the wall came down
Last Sunday night 8,000 illuminated balloons, tethered along eight miles of Berlin’s former inner-city border between East and West Germany,…
Robin Oakley's Twelve to Follow for 2015 (this year's came out ahead)
November has never been my favourite month, not since the time when as a Rugby-playing student my face was rearranged…
Bridge
It’s always good to know where you draw the line and my line, drawn in thick black ink, was going…
Force Majeure
The common feature of the first two games of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen in…
No. 340
Black to play. This position is a variation from Anand-Carlsen; World Championship, Sochi (Game 1) 2014. Can you spot Black’s…
Concrete poem
In Competition No. 2873 you were invited to submit a poem in praise or dispraise of a well-known building. It…
2188: Pieces of eight
Each unclued light is somehow related to a clued one. Elsewhere, ignore an acute accent. Across 4 …
To 2185: Over the sea
The unclued are locations on SKYE, ‘The Misty Isle’ (solutions at 15 and 31). ISLE does double duty in 15/31…
The man feminists seemed to think was worse than the Taleban
Feature writers aren’t often acclaimed for their courage, but Neil Lyndon deserves a bronze plaque in St Bride’s. Twenty-two years…
Battle for Britain
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International cricket must return to Pakistan (and my team went first)
In a tiny courtyard just off the teeming alleys of Lahore’s old town, a young Pakistani boy in a gleaming…
Dear Mary: How to talk to friends whose book you haven’t read
Q. What is the correct thing to say to a writer friend whose book you haven’t read? I buy most…
A buffet in an Egyptian tomb
Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa…
Why must every ‘accident’ be an ‘incident’?
I had thought that the saying ‘Accidents will happen in the best regulated families’ was a vulgar reference to children…
Station to station
Atlantico is a vast buffet inside the Lopesan Costa Meloneras Resort Spa and Casino in Gran Canaria. The Lopesan Costa…
