Life
Fresh food
In Competition No. 2854 you were invited to invent a title for a new cookery book, with a fresh angle,…
2169: Land
Six items of one kind, reading clockwise, form the perimeter, whilst four unclued lights are of another kind. All ten…
To 2166: Somewhere X
Somewhere next to GUYANA (34) and BRAZIL (12), DUTCH (33) is SPOKEN (25), the highest mountain is JULIANA TOP (1D),…
Accept it, embrace it: Conservatives aren’t cool
The Times headline on Tuesday was rather cruel: ‘Stars turn down No. 10 invitation.’ This was a reference to the…
Battle for Britain
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Adam Smith is the father of more than one sort of economics
Gandhi would test his resolve by sleeping between two naked virgins, an avenue not really open to me, as my…
Dear Mary: Do men really have worse table manners when they’re on their own?
Q. My 16-year-old son, who has recently had his first experiences of Clubland, has observed to me, his mother, that…
Measuring out an elegy in Burgundy
It was a sort of wake. An old friend’s father had died, and some of us were helping him and…
Diffuse, defuse and the damnably confused
It’s funny how people hardly know what they are saying. I read recently of diplomats going to Riyadh ‘to diffuse…
An elegy in Burgundy
It was a sort of wake. An old friend’s father had died, and some of us were helping him and…
Adam Smith vs the measurebators
Gandhi would test his resolve by sleeping between two naked virgins, an avenue not really open to me, as my…
After 100 years, the mess we made of the Middle East is coming full circle
When I hear the words Sykes-Picot I more often than not feel like punching an Englishman or a Frog —…
My night in a room haunted by falling cannonballs
On Saturday night I went to Charlie’s 69th birthday party. What a gaff he’s got. The rather snooty description of…
I need a syringe full of ketamine to survive a visit to the vet
The vet arrived at the stable yard wearing his customary grin. He is the happiest man I know. Of course…
Brave, noble, forgotten – the other side of Italy's second world war
At the time of the armistice of September 1943, when the kingdom of Italy formally transferred its allegiance from the…
Yes, I'm biased – but this was a great Royal Ascot
The one sight I was determined not to miss at Royal Ascot was that of the Queen from over the…
Bridge
I’m not trying to pretend it will make up for the drubbing England took in the World Cup, but if…
Blitzkrieg
Chess, unlike football, appears to confer little or no home advantage. In a recent article for Kensington & Chelsea Today,…
No. 320
White to play. This position is a variation from Mamedov-Carlsen, World Blitz 2014. Here White played 1 hxg5 and Carlsen…
Ground work
In Competition No. 2853 you were asked to incorporate the following words (they are real geological terms) into a piece…
2168: History exam
Each of twenty-two clues contains a superfluous word. Initial letters of these words spell three specimens of 5; these are…
to 2165: Not far off
According to Fred HOYLE (24), SPACE is ‘only an hour’s drive away if your car could go straight upwards’ (10…
Do people really hate free schools – or do they just hate me?
This isn’t a headline I was expecting to read: ‘Free schools could be a bigger negative for the Tories than…
Battle for Britain
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Now England are out of the World Cup, we might just have to cheer for Iran
Iran, eh: who knew? Last time I checked it was the great Satan, locking up its own people, stamping out…
