Life
2499: Entitled trio
The unclued lights, including three proper nouns (two of two words), consist of three groups of three words of a…
Cancel culture
In Competition No. 3191 you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy reflecting on the news that the Bard has…
Puzzle no. 646
Black to play… and lose! Aronian–Van Foreest, March 2021. Van Foreest’s next move didn’t blunder his queen but was nonetheless…
Bridge
The Young Chelsea Knock Out is a terrific tournament, and the best thing about it is that the winners get…
Everybody must get stoned
Have you ever played the Frankenstein-Dracula variation? The Monkey’s Bum? The Nescafé Frappé Attack? These are all real chess openings,…
The power of the Oxford brand
I am writing with a mild pain in one arm, having received my first dose of the Oxford vaccine yesterday…
Aussie Life
I didn’t plan to watch it. I just happened to switch on my TV as it was starting. And the…
Aussie Language
Is there a linguistic solution to the misuse of the word ‘racism’? Under so-called Critical Race Theory almost everything is…
Real life
‘Welcome to Victims First. Please leave your name and number and we will return your call. Beeeeeeeeeeeep!’ I had rung…
The Battle for Britain
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How I’m making up for lost time after lockdown
The last time I went to a football game was on Saturday 7 March last year when my 12-year-old son…
Breaking the cycle
For those with neither the time nor inclination to plough through a PhD in the intricacies of the scandals surrounding…
Dear Mary
Q. Before Covid, I was staying with friends in the country every other weekend. As a single man living in…
Package deal
Restaurant-goers who cannot let go of restaurants — for professional or other reasons — are floating on a sea of…
Puzzle no. 645
Black to play. Kosteniuk–Koneru, Skolkovo Grand Prix, 2019. The obvious 1…Kg3 fails to 2 Rg5+ Kf4 3 Rg4+. Losing the…
Bridge
If anyone is going to cause me agonies at the bridge table in front of 800 kibitzers by subjecting me…
High life
Gstaad Some of you may have noticed that I have not commented at all about the ongoing soap opera and…
Sacred space
‘This is the book that horses wish every equestrian would read,’ says the blurb for Sacred Spaces: Communion with the…
to 2495: Contrary
Four unclued lights are places in Britain with MARY in their name. The remaining unclued lights can be linked with…
2498: Cross-country
The unclued lights are all non-words, but each can be resolved into a pair of thematic solutions. Across 1 Game…
First and worst
In Competition No. 3190 you were invited to submit the first paragraph of your least favourite type of novel. Sci-fi…
When the universe winks
I write this with a sunny feeling. That’s partly because spring is upon us, but mostly because I have just…
The turf
Thanks to Covid, there could be no spine-tingling roar at the Cheltenham Festival this year as the first race runners…
Low life
One day last week we did a wine run up to Manosque in the foothills of the Alps, leaving early…
Kiwi Life
Although it probably won’t, the recent kerfuffle over the brilliant works of Dr Seuss and other creators of children’s books…
