Life
Language
European and Indian languages seem to be related in the very distant past. Linguists are able, for example, to trace…
The Battle for Britain | 24 September 2022
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No. 721
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Carl Schlechter, Allgemeine Sport-Zeitung, 1908. What is White’s first move?…
Fine food in a sinister Weimar wine cellar: Bardo St James’s Restaurant reviewed
Bardo St James’s Restaurant – a name which reads like a map – is a vast new Italian restaurant in…
Is there any limit to what Erling Haaland can do?
Don’t bother watching those gazillion-dollar TV prequels to The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Who needs gratuitous…
Royal’s success
The London Mindsports Centre in Hammersmith opened its doors in 2021, after it was converted from a Salvation Army building.…
When did mourners stop crying and start ‘welling up’?
‘We got a gusher!’ exclaimed my husband in his idea of the accent of a Texan oil prospector. Normally, I’m…
2574: A Chinese
The unclued Across lights (including a pair) are of a kind and the unclued Down lights can be preceded by…
2571: 10” - solution
The TEN unclued lights are Scottish islands – or ‘INCHES’. First prize Mrs F.A. Bull, Canterbury Runners-up Susan Hay, Wolverhampton;…
Spectator competition winners: songs from the corporate songbooks of Google and Amazon
In Competition No. 3267, you were invited to supply a song from the songbook of one of today’s corporate giants.…
Dear Mary: is it OK for guests to steal pears at Glyndebourne?
Q. We have been invited to a small but formal dinner in the presence of someone who has been a…
Bridge | 24 September 2022
Wroclaw, in Poland, played host to the Open World Championships in August this year. The Open Teams, the first event…
I just can’t face one more argument with anyone, ever again
The cyclist was on the wrong side of the road coming towards me head-on. It was a winding country lane…
The man-eating leopard of Laikipia
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Until only a few years ago, the constellations blazed across the sky above the farm at night…
My three-night retreat with the nuns
We were four round the little table in the nunnery kitchen: a 90-year-old German lady and her man; a nun…
In defence of privilege
Privilege at birth displeases wannabe types, and the subject came up rather a lot last week, especially in the Land…
Why has PayPal cancelled the Free Speech Union?
I thought one of the benefits of being cancelled – I lost five positions in quick succession at the beginning…
Aussie life
‘I’d rather see a church burn,’ is my usual response to a glass of wine getting knocked over. So if…
Language
The word ‘map’ no longer means just a bit of cartography – it now also means ‘minor attracted person’. In…
My lunch with the Queen
None of this would have happened had I accepted my neighbour’s invitation to dine with a Swiss billionaire banker, or…
The ugly side of AA
A lot has been going wrong lately in the support group I’ve been attending for more than 20 years. I…
I had underestimated France’s affection for our monarch
The end that we knew must come eventually, the end we dreaded so much that we could barely think about…
The ultimate chicken pie recipe
Laurie Colwin wrote: ‘No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is…
Dear Mary: How do I confront my husband without telling him I hacked his emails?
Q. The Queen had the knack of making you feel that you were the only person in the room. At…
My racing moment of the year
It takes a little bit of magic to train any racehorse. It takes plenty of magic to keep a 13-year-old…
