Life
Low life
Every Saturday morning Michael rises at four and drives down to the Côte d’Azur to the Magic World car boot…
Puzzle No. 691
Black to play. Maric-Gligoric, Belgrade 1962. White has offered to exchange the rooks on f5 and c3. But Gligoric found…
Similar to
A strange crisis has befallen like. It had long been an object of obloquy and vilification in two functions. The…
Bridge
My friend Nick Sandqvist says that coaching the England juniors is a joy; so great when someone enthusiastic and creative…
The Battle for Britain
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Is hooliganism on the way back?
Forty-odd years ago a friend, a Liverpool supporter, somewhat unwisely took his girlfriend to Elland Road for a Leeds match…
2544: Fives
Clues lead to 5-letter solutions. Each set of ten clues is presented in alphabetical order of the solutions. Correct positioning…
A victim of its own mythology
Langan’s, a brasserie off Piccadilly with curling orange neon signage calling its name, is under new management after it fell…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Three weeks ago I banged my head on the lower branch of our near neighbours’ tree, which I couldn’t…
Mexico is no country for journalists
I’m writing this on my last day in Mexico City, having accompanied my 18-year-old daughter here for the first week…
Solution to 2541: Beastly
The unclued lights form a quartet of three-word terms, each of which has the letter count of (6,6,6) which is…
Single-minded
In Competition No. 3237, you were invited to submit a short story using words of only one syllable. This challenge…
Nakamura the wildcard
Hikaru Nakamura justified his wildcard invitation by taking first place at the Fide Grand Prix in Berlin this month. The…
Real life
‘A diary?’ said the lady in the chintzy gift shop, pronouncing the word very much as Edith Evans said ‘handbag’…
High life
Was it Socrates who said that chaos was the natural state of mankind, and tyranny the usual remedy? Actually it…
Aussie Life
If a week is a long time in politics, two months is a geological epoch, during which not just goalposts…
Aussie Language
Writing in the Daily Telegraph James Morrow referred to something called a preference cascade which he said was a term…
The whine of the Ancient Mariner
I was a bit irritated by all the millennials saying the Superbowl half-time show made them feel old. The 15-minute…
Mystery
In The Archers, Ambridge put on its own set of mystery plays dramatising the Nativity and Passion. BBC Radio 4…
Vintage years
Across oceans and continents, less favoured nations produce more history than they can consume. In these islands, the English —…
Making a meal of it
‘The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. As if it wasn’t bad enough to overhear one side of a conversation as it’s bellowed into a mobile…
Steak Diane
Cooking for romance is no laughing matter. The stakes are high. Get it right and woo the love of your…
Love is …
In Competition No. 3236, you were invited to submit a poem that begins ‘Oh my love is like…’ . From…
Puzzle no. 670
Black to play. Shuvalova–Pavlidou, Women’s World Blitz Championship, 2021. White was winning, but has just played 89 g3-g4? No resignation…
