Life
Low life
Speaking pretty good English, Dr Tayeb came straight to the point. Was I eligible for the ground breaking new cancer…
Aussie life
Prime ministers rarely lose elections by bungling a single issue. An obvious benefit of the four-year term is that if…
Language
According to news reports Vladimir Putin expected his invasion and conquest of Ukraine to be a ‘cakewalk’. This is originally…
Establishing Rapport
Richard Rapport took first place at the Fide Grand Prix in Belgrade last weekend. The Hungarian grandmaster is now almost…
High life
If western universities were not brimming with leftist professors, the present situation in Ukraine would surprise no one. History would…
Puzzle no. 694
White to play. Rapport-Rogic, Austria 2010. Black threatens Qa1+ and then Rxf2+, so Rapport must strike at once. Which move…
Bridge
I still haven’t got over the novelty of sitting down at home, opening my laptop, and – just like fantasy…
Doomscrolling
In 2019, Boris Johnson hit out at ‘the doomsters and the gloomsters’. I was surprised then to find that the…
Diplomatic distractions
My dear friend Richard Stow is a most congenial fellow. A serious financial entrepreneur, he is also a clubman and…
The Battle for Britain
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2547: Ascending order
The (unrelated) unclued lights (one of three words, four of two words, (one with an apostrophe), one pair and two…
How to create a bottleneck
I spend quite a lot of time attacking what I call ‘motorway service station’ path design. More attentive readers of…
The turf
You don’t always have to win to enjoy it. At the end of the £100,000 Paddy Power Imperial Cup at…
Dear Mary
Q. These days I am on a tight budget while many of my friends are still able to spend freely.…
Free speech, Facebook and me
By the time you read this the new draft of the Online Safety Bill should be on the DCMS website.…
Black forest gateau
Kitsch is something of my stock-in-trade. And it doesn’t get more kitsch than Black Forest gateau. Pots of cream, pints…
Real life
The lodger looked at me blankly and pronounced wearily, as though intoning something he was tired of parroting, that I…
Solution to 2544: Fives
First prize Leigh Hughes, Bootle, Merseyside Runners-up Francis Wheen, Pleshey, Essex; Robin Jolly, Selsey, Chichester, West Sussex Got something to…
A life in limericks
In Competition No. 3240, you were invited to tell the life story of a well-known figure in three limericks. In…
Low life
Catriona has a commission to paint the 17th-century façade of the chapel of St Joseph’s. She’d made a start when…
Aussie life
There’s nothing like a war and a flood to ease pretend problems like exaggerated viral outbreaks off the front pages.…
2546: Picture book
43 (two words) created 1A (four words) and 3 10 14 (seven words). The latter inspired 17 30, whose work…
Real life
‘This is my father, and his pronoun is he,’ said the builder boyfriend, checking his dad into Accident and Emergency.…
Embolden
The most emboldened man on earth must be Vladimir Putin. Everything seems to embolden him. Treating Russia as a pariah…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. Rory Sutherland recently wrote about high-end takeaways (Wiki Man, 19 February). In the last London lockdown, I was fortunate…
