Life
Low Life
Vernon fancies this new age elfin-faced French woman who owns and runs a restaurant. She’s hard-working, she’s a reader, and…
Real life
‘Oh, I do so love to see all the lovely pheasants running around the place,’ said the lady walking the…
Soccer
I have never been a soccer mom, described in the Washington Post as ‘the overburdened, middle-income working mother who ferries…
High life
Gstaad After six-and-a-half months apart, I had no trouble recognising my wife. Out she came on to the driveway to…
Ritz assessment
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Bridge
Top bridge players have a spooky ability to recall thousands of hands, often from many years back. With so many…
The new youngest grandmaster
Abhimanyu Mishra became the world’s youngest grandmaster last month, at 12 years and 4 months old. The boy from New…
2514: Welcome back
Unclued lights (one of two words, the others paired) are of a kind. Across 7Lace branches left in fruit tree (6)…
Solution to 2511: Changing places
The unclued lights form pairs of anagrams, one word in each pair being a place-name: 1A/6A, 1D/21, 6D/13, 11/38, 19/30…
Dear Mary
Q. I live in a row of town houses with a communal strip of garden in front. Three of the…
The Battle for Britain
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My life as a dogsbody
Even a small dog can be quite high maintenance. No, I’m not talking about Mali, our one-year-old cavapoochon, but Bertie,…
Riding high
Think of a punishing distance for a bike race. Double it, multiply by ten, throw in two of the world’s…
Puzzle no. 661
Black to play. Daggupati–Mishra, Charlotte 2020. 1…Rf1+ 2 Kg2 is a dead end, as White’s queen covers the f2 square.…
Universal
In Competition No. 3206, you were invited to supply a sonnet on the universe. The late Frank Kermode reckoned that…
Aussie Life
The only time that the BBC has ‘emu-lated’ an Australian broadcaster was in the early Seventies, when it suspended its…
Aussie Language
‘Muck-raking’ is an old journalism expression coined in the US around 1900 to describe two types of journalists: a) those…
My problem with the Euros
I’m struggling to work up much enthusiasm about England’s progress in the Euros. I know, I know, Tuesday night’s victory…
Dear Mary
Q. The other night, while hosting a house party, I was one of only three people still chatting by the…
Why I won’t buy a Tesla
I loved the Ford Mustang Mach-E which I had on loan for four days. It was gorgeous to drive, and…
Huntin’, shootin’, fishin’
In 1923 in Whose Body? we were introduced to Lord Peter Wimsey on his way to an auction where he…
The Battle for Britain
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A time for New Zealand wines
‘The doors clap to, the pane is bright with showers.’ With ‘summer’ determined to do its worst, there is one…
Bridge
I have a confession to make. I did something I haven’t done for over 20 years: I went on holiday.…
High life
Taki 3 July 2021 9:00 am
Wimbledon is here at last, after its absence in 2020. What struck me watching the French Open on television a…