Life
Rhyme time
In Competition No. 2863 you were invited to recast a well-known nursery rhyme in the style of a well-known author.…
2178: Saint and playwright
The unclued lights are connected by 33/23. One pair of unclued lights gives one context, in which two further pairs…
to 2175: Elated grunt
The four works were Waverley (anagram of 12/21), Kenilworth (15/8), The Talisman (29/2) and Ivanhoe (38/37) by SIR WALTER SCOTT (diagonally…
The lesson of the young men fighting for Isis: evil is in all of us
I had an interesting discussion with my friend Aidan Hartley earlier this week about whether the young men fighting for…
Battle for Britain
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Just what Diego Costa needed: a guide to the traditions of the Premier League
That excitable but likeable hombre, Everton manager Roberto Martinez, took it upon himself to give a stern lecture to the…
Dear Mary: How would you answer Radek Sikorski’s goose-stepping question?
Q. In his Spectator notebook of 30 August, describing a recent gaudy at the Oxford college he attended in the…
Fischer’s is like visiting Vienna without having to go to Austria (thank God)
Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a…
‘Escalate’: an exciting new way to say ‘pass the buck’
Shaun Wright, the police and crime commissioner for South Yorkshire, spoke to Sky television last week about how little he…
Vienna without the Austrians
Fischer’s is Austria made safe for liberals, gays, Jews and other Untermenschen riffraff, because it is a restaurant, not a…
Those ‘traditions of English football’ in full
That excitable but likeable hombre, Everton manager Roberto Martinez, took it upon himself to give a stern lecture to the…
Wonder Wall
One of the greatest parliamentary sketch-writers of all time, Norman Shrapnel, made a point of never socialising with the politicians…
You can't make friends with Uncle Sam and survive for long
Can somebody tell me when America last got it right? Uncle Sam’s track record in selecting leaders in faraway places…
Glazed tiles, a barred window: it must be another morning in a police cell
In my late twenties, it was not unusual for me to wake up in a police cell wearing a paper…
Why won't my cleaner leave me the Watchtower?
‘Hi I did Put it on It needed more’ is the pleasingly obscure haiku I find on my kitchen table.…
Wedding receptions make me wonder about the point of marriage
Back from holiday in Italy, I look out of my kitchen window in Northamptonshire to find the country view blocked…
It's time for Kenya to put aside dreams of singing wells and dancing bulls
Laikipia ‘Good morning, sir!’ The warrior strides up to me on the high plains and shakes my hand. ‘May…
Bridge
I was talking to the brilliant 27-year old Israeli player Alon Birman at the recent Brighton Congress, when suddenly there…
Olympiad highlights
To round off my coverage of the chess Olympiad in Tromsø, which saw a total of 313 teams in the…
No. 329
White to play. This position is from Lee-Croes, Tromsø Olympiad 2014. White’s position is overwhelming and he now found a…
Dark thoughts
In Competition No. 2862 you were invited to submit a poetic preview of when the lights go out. Submissions were…
2177: Amaze
The titles of four of an artist’s works (9,7; 6,6; 6,2,4; 12) read clockwise round the perimeter from a square…
To 2174: Difficulty
The key phrase is KNOW WHERE THE SHOE PINCHES (12 38 43). Each of the partially indicated answers is pinched…
Not all knowledge is equal
I first locked horns with Michael Rosen, the former children’s laureate, on Sky News about four years ago. We were…
Battle for Britain
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