Life
Real life
Someone else with my name is wreaking havoc with my attempts to control the Twitter account I don’t want. Obviously,…
Bridge
Bridge is not too enticing if your parents had card evenings when you were a child, which often ended in…
Dear Mary
From Lady Antonia Fraser Q. I enjoy getting readers’ letters, but there is one category I am at a loss…
The Battle for Britain
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The Cape of good reds
‘Earth has not anything to show more fair.’ One can admire the view from Westminster Bridge and feel near the…
Low life
At the desk I gave my name and showed my Covid vaccination pass and the woman told me to take…
Sherry trifle
Christmas brings out the best and the worst in me. It’s a chance to give in to my inclination to…
The turf
A joyful Saturday at Ascot recently reminded me that when the old Hurst Park Racecourse (near Hampton Court Palace) closed…
High life
A few weeks after Friedrich Nietzsche bragged to an admirer that he had completed a ruthless attack on our Lord,…
Just bring me a boiled egg
The Connaught Hotel’s formal dining room was always, to me, a place of childish myth; more comforting for being mythical.…
Some (tentative) reasons to be cheerful
Someone sent me a job advert recently for a Junior Research Fellowship at Queen’s College, Oxford. It states: ‘The Queen’s…
Word of the year
Cis
Solution to 2534: Off pitch
The unclued lights are cricket fielding positions. The clues contain the names of 12 present and former England cricketers: Old,…
Born again
In Competition No. 3229, you were invited to provide the story of the Nativity retold in the style of a…
Puzzle no. 683
White to play and mate in 3. Composed by Albert Barbe, 1861. Only the first move is required, but it’s…
The meeting of minds
I learned a great deal at university, about half of it from a man called Raymond Foulk. Ray was not…
Wild life
Laikipia Plateau, Kenya Our local chief Panta wore a government-issue khaki uniform with epaulettes, beret and swagger stick. On a…
Another year of brickbats and bouquets
Sport and politics have always been intertwined, but this was the year they became joined at the hip. Yorkshire racism;…
Dectet
Ten pairs of unclued lights give the names of people whose 89 was ‘50D/2A’ (six words in total). They include…
Twelve questions for Christmas
1. ‘I like the game, the money, and the fame.’ Which Twitter-loving top grandmaster said that, in response to an…
Christmas quiz
Set by Christopher Howse. Illustrated by Castro
Aussie Life
The slur issued by Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe in the Chamber last week towards Hollie Hughes reaffirmed one thing, that…
Aussie Language
Nick Cater has coined what I think is a brilliant new expression the ‘laptop class’. This is his vivid and…
Small-minded
In Competition No. 3228, you were invited to provide a well-known extract from adult literature rewritten for inclusion in an…
Puzzle 11 December 2021
White to play and mate in 2. Composed by W.A. Shinkman, Montreal Spectator, 1880. As things stand, White has no…
