Life
Low life
For EU nationals living in Britain and wanting to legally remain after Brexit, a letter or an email was enough…
European Online Club Cup
Since the start of the pandemic, opportunities for serious competition between players ranked outside the world’s top 20 have been…
to 2499: Entitled trio
The theme was C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 38A (of Scotland), 43A and 22D were all…
Aussie Life
Australia’s iconic hippie playground is in the news. This time it is not about real estate booms or Hollywood celebrity…
Language barriers
I haven’t yet read the report published by the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. But, looking at the recommendations,…
Dear Mary
Q. I have just been invited to a wedding where the groom will be the only person I know. Much…
Rhymes royal
In Competition No. 3193 you were invited to submit clerihews (two couplets, AABB, metrically clunky, humorous in tone) on members…
2501: Delightful
7 Down has wordplay to only half its grid entry. The undefined part is the first word of a 9-word…
to 2498: Cross country
The unclued lights consist of the names of two countries overlapping by two or three letters: eg 25D ‘JAPANAMA’ gives…
Bridge
Bridge is a complex game, and is played by humans. Put those two things together and you have a guarantee…
Puzzle no. 648
Black to play. Livaic-–Oparin, Fide World University Online Championship, March 2021. After 1…Rxc5 2 Rxb4, a draw was soon agreed.…
Unfair play
Twenty players were disqualified from the Fide World University Online Championships, out of almost 900. Does that call for moral…
High life
It takes a very good writer to produce prose that provokes an emotional response in a reader, even when it…
The Battle for Britain
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Real life
After refusing to issue my HRT without a blood pressure test, the GP surgery rang to offer me an appointment.…
A parcel of rogues
There is a more depressing subject than the lockdown. The evening began with a bottle of 18-year-old Glenmorangie. It was…
Low life
In the waiting room I thought about the Duke of Edinburgh. In particular, I pictured him saluting the cenotaph on…
The facts about race and education
Judging from the reaction to last week’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, you’d think it had been written…
Wild life
Laikipia In the past I had a low opinion of sheep. During my first forays into farming I saw them…
Shonky
A reader sent in a television preview from the Daily Star for Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds in which ‘Brad Pitt leads…
Aussie Life
Australia’s by-sea-girtness, as much as its size, means meteorologists will always have their work cut out predicting the kind of…
Aussie Language
The Oxford English Dictionary is currently asking ‘how and why sexist terms are recorded in the dictionary and what this…
A glimpse into cricket’s future
After the thrills and spills and last-gasp excitements of England’s triple-headed series in India, the attention of the cricket fan…
A creature of habits
Along with many other people, I gave up drinking for the month of January and then resumed with gusto on…
Alba
‘What, old monkey-face!’ said my husband with unnecessary lack of gallantry. He was referring to the 18th Duchess of Alba,…
