Life
2524: Spelean II
Clockwise round the grid from 20 runs a quotation minus one word (1,2,4,4,4,1,4,1,5,4,4,9) followed by an honest servant’s name. Unclued…
Roll out
I was rolling out some pastry that had been cooling its pudgy heels in the fridge when voices on the…
Low life
With a French health card everything is free for us cancer patients, even taxis to and from the hospital. ‘This…
News from nowhere
The residents of Mayfair are misnamed: they do not really live here. They live in Mayfair like I live on…
Two class acts
Not many people would have seen that coming. I’m talking of course of last Saturday evening and the women’s final…
High life
Memories for me are like beautifully edited copy: all cleaned up and retaining only the good parts. The wife tells…
The Battle for Britain
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The turf
The emphasis may all be on speed horses these days, with breeders interested only in horses that struggle to get…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I recently attended a wedding which was (for me) quite ‘grand’, with a church ceremony followed by a reception.…
Bridge
‘Table presence’ is a funny old expression in bridge. You might think it means what it would in any other…
Free schools are victims of their own success
For the founders of the West London Free School, of which I was one, last Thursday should have been a…
Real life
The two-acre smallholding lived up to its name in being very, very small indeed. We had to squeeze around the…
Aussie Life
Do fish have feelings? And if they do, does anybody care? RSPCA Australia’s willingness to lease their logo to salmon…
Aussie Language
The New York Times has chosen a word to describe what happens to people under Covid restrictions: ‘languishing’. Under lockdown…
The Battle for Britain
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The brave new world of work
Is flexible working better or worse for productivity? What is the correct blend of remote and office work? Billions of…
Low Life
In the New Year I was introduced to a couple who had fled Britain impulsively on New Year’s Eve with…
Real life
‘I’ve got COPD,’ said a friend of mine, not elaborating at all as I stared at him waiting for him…
Bridge
The end to the European Championships Qualifier — from an English perspective — was one of the most dramatic ever…
Dear Mary
Q. My granddaughter Jane has been asked on a date to the Wolseley by George (both pseudonyms). Although she finds…
The stories that are too good to check
Last weekend, Rolling Stone ran a story about an interview an emergency room doctor had given to a local news…
Testing times
In London, the weather is a gentle sashaying mockery. An Indian summer reminds us of the sullen apology of summer…
Quenelles
When Peter Quennell was sent down from Oxford for consorting with a woman called Cara (by Evelyn Waugh’s account), he…
High life
Gstaad Mercedes Benz heir Mick Flick and I have been friends for more than half a century. We both married…
TB or not TB
In Competition No. 3215, you were -invited to supply a poem about Geronimo the alpaca. The camelid’s fate was finally…
