Life
The Battle for Britain | 16 April 2022
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The glorious return of the Grand National crowd
How wonderful after three years to have the crowds back to enjoy the glorious concoction of skill, bravery, razzmatazz and…
How to watch YouTube on your TV – and why you should
According to Pliny the Elder, Scipio Aemilianus was the first man to shave daily. The origin of the name Boeing…
Nakamura’s place
Wesley So won the final Fide Grand Prix, which was held in Berlin earlier this month. But it was Hikaru…
The Aesopian language of algospeak
To evade algorithms that hunt down forbidden words, users of platforms like TikTok employ cryptic synonyms. So deadbecomes unalive, and…
Bridge | 16 April 2022
I went cycling in the Pyrenees with my teenagers last week. Every time we stopped for a break, out came…
The wine of the Wild Geese
The Irish rarely understate their achievements. Yet there is one exception. Over the centuries, the links between Catholic Ireland and…
Aussie life
April is the cruellest month for anybody who despairs at the state of contemporary humour. Where are the Ealing comedies…
Language
The expression ‘to walk back’ has exploded over the news recently. We have been told by the news media that…
The most disadvantaged group in Britain? White working-class men
I’m not sure what to think about the BBC’s announcement that it wants a quarter of its staff to be…
The Battle for Britain | 9 April 2022
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Pep and Klopp, kings of England
It’s a game for the ages all right, City againstLiverpool on Sunday as the Premier League moves to its most…
No. 697
White to play. Duda-Anton Guijarro, Charity Cup, March 2022. Black’s last move, 21…Qe7-b4 was an unforced error. Which move did…
2550: Shorties
The unclued lights and eight clued without thematic definition are of a kind, expressly confirmed in a section of Chambers.…
Spectator competition: poems about Shackleton’s Endurance
In Competition No. 3243, you were invited to submit a poem about the recent discovery of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance.…
Modern capitalism has failed my son
A light was on in the caravan site office so I went over to try and buy a gas canister.…
Career moves
Sergey Karjakin won’t be playing much chess for a while. Last month, the Russian grandmaster’s Twittering jingoism in support of…
£120 steak that looks like a M&S meal deal: The Maine reviewed
Last week Chris Corbin and Jeremy King lost controlof the restaurant group they founded: Corbin & King, which made theWolseley,…
Dear Mary: How do I convince my brother to go to a fancy dress party?
Q. My brother’s social life has dried up since his divorce (which coincided with the pandemic). So when he received…
Would my godson survive an afternoon with me?
My friend Emily, who once got an owl stuck to her hand, was bringing her son for a day with…
What’s the right way to pronounce ‘gif’?
The man who invented gifs, Stephen Wilhite, has died, aged 74. Controversy survives him – over how to pronounce the…
The art of the witty riposte
One hundred or so years ago, a down-in-the-dumps Joseph Roth wrote to Stefan Zweig: ‘The barbarians have taken over.’ Later…
2547: Ascending order - solution
The unclued lights are phrases which include the numbers from 1 to 7, with 1 featured twice. First prize John…
Hell is an English train journey
Delayed, on Southern Rail Home From the Hill is a 1987 documentary by Molly Dineen about Hilary Hook, an elderly…
Aussie life
According to our National Archives, the aim of the Immigration Restriction Act, aka the White Australia Policy, was ‘to limit…
