Life
The Battle for Britain | 23 July 2022
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No. 712
White to play and mate in two. Composed by Philip Hamilton Williams, British Chess Magazine, 1895. Answers should be emailed…
Wetware
Modern chess computers, like the program ‘Stockfish’, are treated as oracles. Plug in a position, start the engine, and within…
Spectator competition winners: a postcard from Airstrip One
In Competition No. 3258, you were invited to submit a postcard sent while on holiday in a well-known fictional destination…
2565: 3 x 2
The unclued lights (two single words, one a proper noun, four pairs and one trio) share a certain feature. …
2562: Clear view... - solution
The title resolves into CL RVW which suggests the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams. The unclued…
Aussie life
A younger cohort of visitors is heading for Bowen, best known hitherto as the home of the Big Mango, a…
Language
Here is a delightful phrase which may well become a familiar idiom in English language: ‘weather dependent economy’. I encountered…
How Kyrgios saved Wimbledon
What separates this year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal from every other year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal?…
The builder and I are done with Surrey
As he grouted the last tile, five years after the bathroom was finished, I knew the game was up. ‘I…
Dear Mary: How do I avoid getting waylaid at a packed party?
Q. I have found parties frustrating this month because they have been too crowded. Is there a polite way to…
Civilisation in a sausage: River Restaurant at the Savoy reviewed
When the Tory party set itself on fire last week a restaurateur told me: ‘Don’t worry, Tanya, we’ll still be…
‘Our’ by ‘our’, Boris’s resignation speech
There was a word I didn’t understand in Boris Johnson’s resignation speech (in which he did not resign). He spoke…
2564: Sea monster
Five unclued lights are descriptions of another (four words), from another, by another (two words). Elsewhere, ignore one accent. …
No. 711
White to play. Short-Timman, Staunton Memorial 2008. Short played 1 Qb3, missing an unusual opportunity to cause havoc with the…
2561: Ports - solution
The unclued entry RECYCLING thematically links six unclued cyclic non-word permutations that appear in the systematic order GCYCLIN, NGCYCLI, INGCYCL,…
Spectator competition winners: filmericks
In Competition No. 3257, you were invited to summarise a film in limerick form. A nod to Ezra Haber Glenn,…
Has identity politics had its day?
Have we reached peak woke? In Hollywood, that seems to be the emerging consensus. Thanks to the box office success…
Silver and gold
The ‘English chess explosion’ that began in the 1970s produced a bumper crop of grandmasters, which meant that by the…
The Battle for Britain | 16 July 2022
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The Oprah-fication of Wimbledon
Now that the weakest Wimbledon since 1973 – the year of the boycott – is over, a few thoughts about…
The power of prayerful washing-up
My days pass largely in a state of inanition. The fit and able-bodied express their sympathy, claiming it’s much the…
Bridge | 16 July 2022
The return to pre-Covid normality has been slow and a bit dispiriting. Attendance at the popular English tournaments has been…
Aussie life
Coined, as it was, by a dead white man whose oeuvre is considered one of the crowning achievements of Western…
Language
No language column can ignore Professor Brendan Murphy’s extraordinary 78-word definition of ‘woman’. As you know, when he was questioned…
