Life
Chicken Marbella
What is it about retro food? I don’t mean nostalgic food, from school dinner favourites to your grandmother’s signature dishes.…
Rhodes to nowhere
I’m sympathetic to Oliver Dowden’s formula for defusing culture-war disputes about statues of controversial historic figures: ‘retain and explain’. That…
Chapter and verse
In Competition No. 3220, you were invited to supply a newly discovered short story by a well-known 19th- or 20th-century…
The sudden mate
The hero pauses, plays the move, and announces ‘Checkmate!’ The villain crumples in shock. It’s a scene played out countless…
2528: Not to Lose
Unclued entries are words (one hyphened) or phrases (three of four words each, one of three words, two each of…
Puzzle no. 675
White to play and mate in one. I found this puzzle online, composed by someone with the pseudonym ‘Illion’. I…
To 2525: Prime Times
The [5 Down] MILESTONE puzzle number 2525 is the product of PRIME numbers 101 TIMES 5 TIMES 5, equivalently the…
Aussie Life
One of the most compelling things about Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, is the way we don’t…
Aussie Language
A new study by researchers at the University of Western Australia shows that the most trusted accent in Australia is…
The Battle for Britain
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My nightmare weekend of deer and dogs
Caroline and I are just back from a weekend break in Scotland and, nice though it was, I hadn’t realised…
Festive season
‘Here you are, darling,’ I said to my husband. ‘These lines might have been written for you: “Drinke, quaffe, be…
High life
Around 20 or so years ago I had a point for match point on a perfect grass court at Fort…
Low life
The chesty Corsican taxi driver was giving me his earnest appraisal of the way things were headed in France politically.…
Sometimes wrongs make a right
It is interesting to consider what would have happened if the Covid virus had emerged in 1921. Or 1821. Or…
Puzzle No. 674
White to play. Mamedyarov–Artemiev, MeltwaterChampions Final 2021. Black’s last move, was Ra8-a4, attacking the pawn on g4. But it allowed…
Bridge
One of my favourite Bridge proverbs is ‘Play the card you’re known to hold’. It doesn’t mean we should blithely…
2527: The main dilemma
Three unclued lights together form an eight-word question from a well-known song. The song’s protagonist suggests the other five unclued…
To 2524: Spelean II
The quotation is ‘I DO WISH THOU WERT A [dog] THAT I MIGHT LOVE THEE SOMETHING’. The honest servant is…
Follow the science
In Competition No. 3219, you were invited to supply clerihews on well-known scientists, past and present. The subject of the…
Chess sets
Since tennis matches are decided in sets, they are sometimes won by the player who has won fewer games. For…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. An acquaintance suggested organising a celebratory dinner in honour of some mutual friends. He asked my husband and me,…
Real life
The filling station on the road out of the village was like a scene from Mad Max. People were all…
When the stars align
We were in deepest Dorset, l’Angleterre profonde. The weather was also typically English: inundations followed by counter-attacks from the Indian…
Kiwi Life
A crisis by design It is increasingly sad, so many New Zealanders saying they would leave – if they could…
