Life
My last dance saloon
Gstaad A heavy snowfall diverted 40-odd private jets from landing in Saanen airport, thus the one per cent of the…
Rolling back the years in a stretched Hummer
My first ride in a stretch Hummer. I haven’t lived, I now realise. The prodigious, ridiculous thing, tricked out in…
Finding a job for my cocker spaniel
Seeing a poodle on the London Underground wearing a red vest with the words ‘Diabetes Medical Dog’ has given me…
Local protests don't stop windfarms. Subsidy cuts do
Here in the valley of the River Tove in south Northamptonshire my chickens are laying copiously, my ducks are quacking…
Women simply don't understand sport's importance
Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was once challenged with the story that for their wedding anniversary treat he had taken his…
Bridge
January ended for me with the annual Icelandic Bridge Festival in Reykjavik. There may be a better tournament but I…
Lions’ den
Daniel Johnson, the distinguished editor of Standpoint magazine, can be bracketed with Tim Congdon and Dominic Lawson, as having had…
No. 300
White to play. This is from Johnson-Finch, Marlow 1974. White is building up a strong attack on the kingside and…
Dear diary
In Competition 2833 you were invited to submit an extract from the adolescent diary of a well-known public figure, living…
2148: Eighth of February
Unclued lights (including two of two words and an accent to be ignored) can be expressed in such a way…
to 2145: Two in a row
Each pair consists of two in a ‘row’ in a variety of meanings. PURL (14) & PLAIN (25) (line of…
My battle with Michael Gove’s Blob
Michael Gove has been under fire this week for ‘sacking’ Sally Morgan as chair of Ofsted. You’d think he’d be…
Battle for Britain
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
It’s not just Kevin Pietersen. England needs a whole team of new heroes
Englishmen used to be deported to Australia as a punishment. Now they get sent back to England as an act…
Dear Mary: How can I make my friends read the book I gave them?
Q. I gave a copy of Dan Russel the Fox by Somerville and Ross to a couple I know to be…
Lanes of London is dining for Martians
Lanes of London serves street food to people who hate streets; that is, it exists to soothe the still-curious mouths…
Lumpen’s journey from Marxism to nonsense
A publisher, Kevin Mayhew, has written to The Tablet, which is not a computer journal but a weekly magazine of…
London for aliens
Lanes of London serves street food to people who hate streets; that is, it exists to soothe the still-curious mouths…
Death of a team
Englishmen used to be deported to Australia as a punishment. Now they get sent back to England as an act…
Women’s ways
Liverpool manager Bill Shankly was once challenged with the story that for their wedding anniversary treat he had taken his…
Watch out, wolves of Wall Street! It's time Davos had a World Decency Forum
Gstaad If a catastrophic avalanche were to crush the Davos convention hall, where the fat cats of this world were…
Memories of a departed dog — and of a different me
I shifted a chest of drawers that hadn’t been moved for years, and found an old photograph lying among the…
My Chinese water torture
Drip, drip, drip. The noise of my downstairs London conversion flat, where the plumbing was fitted by turn-of-the-century sadists who…
Why I get my health advice from the Daily Mail
When one is in one’s seventies, as I am, one begins to fear the horror of dementia and to carry…
Bridge
I always find it impossible to sleep when I’ve played poorly, and last night just one sleeping pill was never…
