Life
Battle for Britain
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Soho consolations
Soho is so gilded nowadays that even drug addicts look down on it. The wasteland without must match the wasteland…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My mother-in-law has remarried and now lives in South America. She has a large family with nieces, grandchildren, godchildren,…
Let’s not become Scotland
The Law Commission has published a string of recommendations following its recent consultation on changes to hate-crime laws in England…
High life
New York Imagine a European country today in which a newspaper in its most populous city launches a mendacious project…
2536: At rest
Unclued lights are three sets of three words of a kind, along with a name which connects them all (two…
Solution to 2533: Monday’s child
‘From harmony, from heavenly harmony, this universal frame began’ opens JOHN DRYDEN’s Song for ST CECILIA’S DAY (22 November, a…
Aussie Life
I have reached an age where I have started to forget where I have put things, but so far they…
Aussie Language
In a recent piece in the Australian newspaper paper Terry McCrann (the doyen of economics writers — he of the…
Bridge
The 2020 European Championships were an early casualty of lockdown but hopefully 2022 will rectify the count! It’s going to…
Mnemonic
In Competition No. 3227, you were invited to provide verses to help children remember the sequence of the last eight…
Mar del Plata
Alireza Firouzja produced a momentous performance for France at the European Team Championships, held in Slovenia last month. The 18-year-old,…
The Battle for Britain
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Real life
The streetlighting engineer walked up and down outside my house trying to work out who was right: me, or my…
Why punish a scientist for defending science?
As a defender of free speech, I sometimes feel like a man falling through a collapsing building. Just when you…
Low Life
Every year Vernon celebrates the gathering in and pressing of his olive harvest by inviting friends to a ceremony at…
High life
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, and it’s about time, too. Good restaurants and elegant nightclubs are…
Puzzle no. 682
Black to play. Plat-Esipenko, European Team Championship, 2021. The 19-year-old Russian playing Black found a way to force mate in…
Omicron
‘There once was a curate of Kew, / Who kept a young cat in a pew,’ began my husband when…
Above the laws
Fairly early in the pandemic it was widely accepted in scientific circles that the likelihood of outdoor transmission of Covid…
Raising a glass to Grey Gowrie
A group of us had gathered together to raise a glass, tell stories, to laugh and to mourn. It was…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. We have moved into a terraced house in a seaside town. Our joy is confined, however, by the fact…
Solution to: 2532: Patchy?
The unclued lights are TV detectives and their PATCH: 10/8, 13/5D, 15/39, 26/41, 36/33. First prize Emma Corke, Abinger Hammer,…
2535: Triplets
The unclued lights, all nouns or verb forms (one is a hyphened plural), include a common feature different in all…
Aussie Life
Koalas & babies When Covid first hit the news nearly two years ago the Save the Children Fund ran an…
