Life
A voyage through fine wine off Sardinia
One could get used to this. I come from seafaring stock, albeit distant. ‘Anderson’ suggests Viking antecedents, especially as my…
Buying a brand-new car is the ultimate good deed
The Department for Transport recently ended a £1,500 subsidy towards the price of new, lower-priced electric cars one year earlier…
Bridge | 25 June 2022
At a bridge tournament about 15 years ago, I started chatting to a friendly, eccentric woman in her mid-sixties, wearing…
In praise of a solidly, wonderfully French hotel
Nothing in the beach hotel was made of plastic. It wasn’t advertised as being a plastic-free hotel, but we noticed…
Rewilding will kill Waitrose
‘Do you care about the woodland? Do you care about the wildlife?’ shouted the bearded Woodland Trust volunteer from his…
Lord Geidt’s ‘odious’ remark
Lord Geidt said in his resignationletter that he had been put in an odious position. He meant it was hateful,though…
Don’t bet against Emmanuel Macron
It’s nice to be back on the old continent again, especially after getting within a couple of hundred yards of…
2558: Blonde, 78 - solution
Unclued lights were associated with JUBILEE: years (CALENDAR, SCHOOL, FINANCIAL), clips (CROCODILE,PAPER, TIE) and London underground lines (CENTRAL, CIRCLE, NORTHERN).…
2561: PORTS
Six unclued entries comprise systematically ordered non-words thematically linked by a normal entry, itself unclued. Across 1 Awaiting consideration,…
No. 708
White to play. Rezasade-Movsesian, Bundesliga 2022. White was an underdog in this game, but found a subtle winning idea. What…
‘Poundland and Prejudice’: book titles tweaked for straitened times
In Competition No. 3254, you were invited to tweak a well-known book title to reflect the straitened times we live…
Cream of the Candidates
The Candidates tournament is underway in Madrid, where eight of the world’s best players vie for the right to challenge…
Aussie life
When the Minister for Blackouts, Bankruptcy and Bull finally announces that, in order to save the planet, we need to…
Language
The word ‘emergency’ has been part of the English language since around 1630. Its most common political use today is…
2557: Heroes - Solution
The perimetric knights are MO FARAH, JASON KENNY, STEVE REDGRAVE and CHRIS HOY, all OLYMPIC WINNERS. Together they have amassed…
Have they spotted it?
Returning to the board, Mamedyarov looks at Anand’s outstretched hand with bemusement. It can’t be a draw offer – that…
No. 707
White to play. Trent-Carlstedt, Hamburg 2022. Lawrence Trent spotted a way to deliver a quick mate. Which move did he…
Spectator competition winners: What was Edgar Allen Poe created for?
In Competition No. 3253, you were invited to write a poem entitled ‘Song of Myself’ in the style of the…
2560: Obit VI
Clockwise round the grid from 7 run the names (8,5,3,3,8,3,8,7,7) of six members of a winning set, the other three…
Dear Mary: my pool guests are outstaying their welcome
Q. A close friend, who has lost most of her income in recent years, has done something disfiguring to a…
Why country house opera is just the ticket
Last Saturday I went to the opera for only the second time in my life. This was at the invitation…
I demand my right to night
The LED streetlamp outside my house was fitted with a ‘compromise’ shield acceptable to a vegan that looked as if…
Bridge | 18 June 2022
When lockdown struck, high-standard online bridge tournaments sprang up and with them a multitude of cheats, world champions among them,…
The magic of black and white films
He is a rich English lord with a very large house and his wife is a beautiful American with a…
The art of breaststroke
I’m house-sitting for the foreign correspondent while he attends the funeral of his beloved father-in-law Toto, the last of the…
