Life
Bridge
Do you ever watch the greats playing bridge? And if you do, are you sometimes baffled, because instead of playing…
Warhorses
Towards the end of last year, those two old warhorses Anatoly Karpov and Jan Timman added to their total of over…
No. 297
White to play. This position is a variation from Nepomniachtchi-Ivanchuk, Beijing 2013. White has a ferocious attack. How can he…
Talking shop
In Competition 2830 you were invited to choose, from different authors, two characters who have the same job or position…
2145: Two in a row
Unclued lights form four thematic pairs, one of which combines to form a single word. Across 1 Working…
Christmas crossword: The winners
Christmas carols, and their anagrammed ‘new titles’: O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL IT CAME UPON THE MIDNIGHT CLEAR ONCE…
Want to create the next Mark Zuckerberg? Teach Latin!
I was disappointed to read an article in the Times about a new free school in Hammersmith being proposed by…
Battle for Britain
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How James Goldsmith's wisdom on mistresses could revolutionise mobile phones
I wouldn’t worry much about the future of the British economy. Because I have a simple plan to make the…
Dear Mary: How can I escape my neighbour’s spy cameras?
Q. I have a problem with what might be called location blindness. I live in Balham, but when I arrange…
Is there a clean joke for Burns Night? I asked Cecil Parkinson...
As a life, it was a scintillating spectrum of the human condition. There was hardship and suffering, as well as…
Where did ‘No justice, no peace’ come from?
The chant No justice, no peace by supporters of Mark Duggan, the drug gangster shot dead by police in 2011,…
The immortal memory
As a life, it was a scintillating spectrum of the human condition. There was hardship and suffering, as well as…
Wild life
On the flight into Kinshasa, I sat next to an elderly Englishman who was pallid with fear. He revealed that…
Mobile phones with a touch of tweed
I wouldn’t worry much about the future of the British economy. Because I have a simple plan to make the…
Taki: How the King of Greece taught me the origins of the F word...
Gstaad Although no longer a regular habit, extended benders now turn me into a sort of magnetic field that picks…
Jeremy Clarke: When public vice improves private virtue
So I go to the all-night house party with my rolled-up yoga mat under my arm. Nice house, middle-class crowd,…
Melissa Kite: Why is it easier to go mad than get a refund from a utility company?
‘Hello, I’d like my money back, please,’ I said to the nice lady on the other end of the line.…
Alexander Chancellor: The Chinese must save the cigar from extinction
In Dorchester during the Christmas holiday I bought a two-slice electric toaster at Currys. It was a nice little toaster…
How jockeys play dirty
At Christmas a friend from CNN sent me the story of a US officer on a European train. Searching for…
Bridge
First up, HNY to one and all and especially my regular reader (no, not you mummy) John Hinde, who wrote…
Different paths
Daniel Johnson, Dominic Lawson and Tim Congdon all had the potential to become chess masters. However, all three chose alternative routes,…
No. 296
White to play. This position is a variation from Congdon–‘Heinsius’, online game 2014. White has a ferocious attack and now…
Culture shock?
In Competition 2829 you were invited to imagine what Philip Larkin might have made of the news that Hull has…
2144: Leonids
1D is the title of a work minus a word that is suggested by three further unclued lights. Other unclued…
