Life
All mirrors and monochrome: Mister Nice reviewed
Mister Nice is not so much a restaurant as a pre-dawn thought flung into the drag between Piccadilly Circus and…
Kugelhopf: a reassuring introduction to baking with yeast
Yeast scares even some of the most proficient cooks. I know home cooks and professionals alike, food writers and fanatics,…
What’s going wrong with English rugby
Rejoice, as you don’t normally say after a hammering like the peerless French dished out to England at Twickenham. But…
When is a crime not a crime?
On Monday, Suella Braverman published draft guidance designed to rein in the police habit of recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’…
2593: Capital Development – solution
1A, 7A, 18A, 40A, 46A and 47A are all on the new Elizabeth Line, which appears in the grid when…
2596: Charades
Unclued lights provide three definitions each of a whole word and of its two syllables. Solvers should highlight the word…
Spectator competition winners: the Lord’s Prayer as a sonnet
In Competition No. 3290, you were invited to recast the Lord’s Prayer as a sonnet. The late Frank Kermode reckoned…
My conversations with Wilfred Thesiger
When Wilfred Thesiger arrived in the port of Al Mukalla after his foot crossing of the Empty Quarter desert with…
The rise of the village poo-painters
After they banned horses from the village green and surrounding common land, I set about trying to find out why,…
Paper? Marriage? Ours? Ceremony?
‘They say they can’t do it tomorrow. The papers haven’t come.’ Catriona, just back from the village, was shouting up…
Aussie life
The now universally acknowledged failure of vaccines and masks to reduce your chances of spreading, contracting or dying from Covid…
Language
The Church of England is considering scrapping centuries of Christian teaching to give God gender-neutral pronouns. The church has confirmed…
The restorative power of great claret
‘Come dance with me in Ireland.’ That has always struck me as an enchanting prospect, though a recent Hibernian venture…
How to dress for air travel
Even though I fly a lot, I retain the notion that air travel should be treated as a special occasion…
Crossword 2595: Three of a kind
The unclued lights display a common feature, different in each example. Elsewhere, ignore an apostrophe. Across 1 Tracks birds (5)…
