Life
Michael Gove did not kill Of Mice and Men or To Kill A Mockingbird
I suppose I should be grateful that the liberal intelligentsia doesn’t bother to check any of the facts if an…
Battle for Britain
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From Lewis Hamilton to Kevin Pietersen – who’s the worst team player?
Ah teamwork! There’s no me in team, as David Brent used to observe sagely, but there are often plenty of…
Dear Mary: What’s the best way to squash a bore?
Q. Two acquaintances of mine have somehow inveigled their way into my dining circuit. They are men who, despite privilege…
Harry’s Bar, where a slice of cake costs €32 – and is worth it
Harry’s Bar is a dull pale box. This is remarkable in Venice, which is a hospice for dying palaces, held…
The sinister new meaning of ‘support’
When I asked my husband why paramedical professions were given to remaking the language in strange ways, he replied in…
Old Harry’s game
Harry’s Bar is a dull pale box. This is remarkable in Venice, which is a hospice for dying palaces, held…
Team games
Ah teamwork! There’s no me in team, as David Brent used to observe sagely, but there are often plenty of…
Confidence boost
Eight people became millionaires last Saturday, collecting £1,342,599 each when the Scoop6 bet, which had been rolled over for 12…
Being the father of the bride has matured me – as I discovered in the nightclub afterwards
So the wedding of my little girl to Andy Bancroft Cooke went off without a hitch, a wonderful ceremony in…
In the soft Cornish air, with the pressure off, I caved in
Just when I was beginning to think I’d had enough, I was offered a free week in a caravan. I…
A&E is no place for the over-tens
‘Ouch!’ said the ex-builder boyfriend. ‘I think something’s bitten me.’ And a few seconds after that, something bit me too.…
Why do consultants write such scary, incomprehensible letters?
There is a kind of letter designed to bewilder, upset and possibly terrify its recipient, and this is the standard…
The books that have kept me alive
In bed Safety measures — I’ve never been good at them, so inevitably I inhaled and got soaked by the…
Bridge
There’s no point in soft-soaping it: however long you’ve been playing bridge, however well you think you play, if you’ve…
Iron nerves
The game that clinched Magnus Carlsen’s victory in the Gashimov Memorial came, fittingly, in a last-round cliffhanger against his closest…
No. 315
White to play. This position is from Wojtaszek-Safarli, Gashimov ‘B’ Group 2014. The white pieces are very active and the…
Scottish question
In Competition No. 2848 you were invited to submit a poem commenting on Scottish independence in the style of William…
2163: Muscle
Six unclued lights (one hyphened) suggest words each differently formed from the same 13 22, which appears as a clued…
to 2160: 18 down
The unclued lights are all CHARACTERS (18D) in Plato’s dialogues, all but SOCRATES (1A) appearing in titles. In six cells,…
Chasing Pulitzers has ruined American journalists. That’s why they're edited by Brits
I was interested to read a story by Michael Wolff in USA Today saying that Graydon Carter may be about…
Battle for Britain
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This strategy won Eurovision. It could also save your life
Oskar Morgenstern grew up in Vienna, John von Neumann in Budapest. Clearly the same Austro-Hungarian intellectual spirit which gave rise…
Dear Mary: How can I make my polite English husband interrupt like a German?
Q. My dear English husband has never mastered the knack of timing his interventions in conversation. He hesitates politely, and…
Some consumer advice: do not sell your daughter for a bottle of 90-year-old port
Port, or Hermitage? This does not refer to personal consumption. I was trying to remember Meredith’s Egoist, in which one…
