Life
Bridge
You may not have heard of Sue Johnson but she could be the fairy godmother bridge needs right now. Not…
Solution to 2539: Wider
The six unclued lights and PLAYWRIGHTS (35/26) are FETCHER/Fletcher (13), CHILLER/Schiller (22), WESTER/Webster (34), MEANDER/Menander (38), PRIESTLY/Priestley (6) and COTEAU/Cocteau…
A bit previous
In Competition No. 3235, you were invited to invent a prequel to a well-known work of literature and supply an…
Puzzle no. 689
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Touw Hian Bwee, Schakend Nederland 1976. The first move allows…
The day Boris tried to bribe me
It’s not every day that a future prime minister offers you a bribe, but that’s what happened to me 38…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My partner’s work involves him seeing and talking to people all day, every day. I booked us on to…
High life
Gstaad OK sport fans, have you been enjoying the concentration camp Olympics? I’m sure the Uighurs in the Chinese gulag…
Low life
Eighty yards west of the high terrace where I’ve sat for three weeks recuperating is a hospice built for Napoleon’s…
Wild life
Malindi, the Indian Ocean When I lived in Jerusalem a long time ago, I often visited the Church of the…
Aussie Life
The elevation of Dylan Alcott to Australian of the Year is a great win for the disability sector, but threatens…
Aussie Language
As we approach a federal election, for the next few weeks I’ll look at some ‘election lingo’. ballot: Why do…
High life
Gstaad Joan Didion, who died last December, took herself extremely seriously. American writers tend to do that, especially those…
Time for a change
In Competition No. 3234, you were invited to submit either a poem or a short story entitled ‘Covid’s metamorphoses’. Thanks…
Magnus’s tasks
World championship match play has a stony logic, where there are no prizes for glorious endeavour. It calls to mind…
Solution to 2538: Green Light! Cross!
The unclued lights are towns on Gozo (go + zo are defined in the puzzle’s title). Apologies that this crossword…
The turf
The engine wasn’t what it was, they said. At ten years old the spark that had once made him a…
Med winter warmer
The larger islands of the Mediterranean all have their glories. Fought over for millennia, they now seem to have attained…
Seeing is believing
In Jake’s Thing, Kingsley Amis gave it a name: he called it ‘the inverted pyramid of piss’: ‘One of [Geoffrey…
Late capitalism
‘More to my taste is Trockenbeerenkapitalismus,’ said my husband with an intonation that indicated a joke. The joke was a…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. My husband and I have made friends with two distinguished, although fairly eccentric, writers whose company we thoroughly enjoy.…
Where’s my trigger warning?
Last week brought the news that some universities have attached more ‘trigger warnings’ to certain books, concerned that students may…
Low Life
Harley Granville-Barker, actor, director, playwright, manager and critic, was a pasha of the Edwardian London stage. As a director, his…
2541: Beastly
The unclued lights are to be resolved into four (unrelated, non-thematic) phrases which share a common format. Across 12…
Puzzle no. 688
White to play. Dardha–Shuvalova, Tata Steel Challengers 2022. The 16-year-old grandmaster from Belgium found a crisp way to finish the…
Battle for Britain
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
