Life
Dear Mary: Why aren’t I getting more Instagram ‘likes’?
Q. As a novice user of Instagram I was flattered at how quickly I gathered followers – 200 already. Many…
The Battle for Britain | 8 October 2022
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2576: After Eleven
The unclued lights form five pairs, as suggested by the title. Across 6 Fashion blunted by useless needle (6) 10…
No. 723
Black to play. Giorgobiani-Sivanandan, Fide Cadets U8 Girls Championship, 2022. Black has a subtle winning move in this position. What…
My battle with an ant
At eight o’clock in the morning a nurse injected me with a radioactive marker and told me to go away…
Aussie life
Prior to the threatened rewriting of the Australian constitution can we stop re-writing the English dictionary and the meanings of…
Language
According to American journalist Kaylee McGhee White (writing in the Washington Examiner) it is now officially okay to use the…
No. 722
Black to play and win. A variation from the game Aronian-Ivanchuk, Julius Baer Generation Cup, September 2022. Ivanchuk could have…
Spectator competition winners: children’s stories get the horror treatment
In Competition No. 3268, you were invited to recast an extract from children’s literature in the horror genre. In the…
The lessons of Newmarket
The swallows who nest yearly in my garage have agreed that ‘that’s enough baby-making for this year’, and started their…
AA only admits the right sort of alcoholics
The support group groupies have issued another ban. They have attempted to slap an exclusion order on another long-standing member,…
The hidden benefits of smart motorways
In 2015, Holborn Underground station was suffering from serious overcrowding at peak hours, with a bottleneck forming in the space…
2575: Problem XIII
Singers will know that where ‘Q’ = ‘the number of’: Q34/22A x Q41/39/1D x Q3/8/38 = Q the 14. 41/39/1D…
Bridge | 1 October 2022
A beautiful Greek island; a warm sea; delicious al fresco dinners; and bridge from morning till night with Andrew Robson.…
The joy of morphine sulphate
Two football friends, brothers, Mick and Pete, came to visit last week. We’ve been going to matches together since 1969,…
Rupert Murdoch has nothing to fear from me
Harvard man Russell Seitz has sent me an extraordinary present as an object lesson in ‘what a magazine should be…
What ‘Budget’ and ‘bilge’ have in common
The Budget (which the revolutionary fiscal act last week was technically not) is directly connected with bilge and with one…
Dear Mary: How do I get out of a friend’s bad birthday party?
Q. I shall be spending more time in the company of newer acquaintances in the West Country and would appreciate…
I’m on Andrew Doyle’s side – for now
I’ve agreed to interview the author and journalist Andrew Doyle about his new book at the Conservative party conference –…
2572: Blown up - Solution
As suggested by the quotation by John Donne around the perimeter, the other unclued lights were all kinds of trumpets.…
The sweet satisfaction of a burnt Cambridge cream
If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, then a Trinity or Cambridge burnt cream must taste…
The Generation game.
The latest flashpoint in the Carlsen-Niemann saga took place in the sixth round of the preliminaries at the Julius Baer…
The Battle for Britain | 1 October 2022
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Why the dry martini is the finest cocktail of all
We were discussing bourbon and whether American whiskey could ever rival Scotch. I recalled the first time I ever tried…
Aussie life
As I sit in my study at the end of the day listening to the heavy rain and wondering when…
