Life
Signal failure
Why does virtue-signalling matter? It’s a fair question. After all, if people display virtuous behaviour, need we care about their…
Bridge
When I started learning bridge (about 20 years ago) I was taught the basic guidelines of play and defence and…
High life
Isle of Patmos Two hundred years ago last March, the Greeks rose up against the hated Turks who had occupied…
Aussie Life
It used to be that sporting endeavour was regarded as a noble cause, and that our sporting pastimes were governed…
Aussie Language
Talking to Peta Credlin on Sky News I coined a new expression, ‘language communists’. I used to call the bullies…
The Battle for Britain
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Damascene moment
Imad’s Syrian Kitchen is an eyrie off Carnaby Street, a once-famous road which seems to exist nowadays to sell trainers…
Can the Lions prise open the strong Boks?
You would need a digger to explore the levels of irony in a Springbok chief slagging off an opponent’s dirty…
Dear Mary
Q. My beloved wife has been studying Chinese metaphysics for 18 months. Our house and garden have been badly neglected…
Leather and prunella
‘Oh, yes,’ said my husband, enthusiastically, ‘a loathsome disease. The tongue goes black and dry.’ He was referring to an…
Knee-jerk reactions
Before the television presenter Guto Harri took the knee live on air — which cost him his job at GB…
Bridge
Bridge is a game you can never fully master, which is why it’s so endlessly stimulating. No sooner have you…
Puzzle No. 663
White to play. A variation from Grandelius – Xiong, Fide World Cup, Sochi 2021. With an accurate queen check,White can…
2516: Such childish vocabulary
The nouns from the first sentence of a book (in the ODQ) appear as unclued lights — apart from two.…
Solution to 2513: Golden anniversary
The announcement reads: ‘Fifty years ago, on July the third, Jac’s first crossword in this series was published.’ The shaded…
Kasparov’s tailspin
In a game between top players, the opening moves signify not only the battleground they have embraced, but also the…
Low life
We arranged to meet the second, more expensive, guide of our Somme battlefield visit at the Thiepval Memorial visitor centre…
The turf
At least England’s defeat in the European Cup final has spared us the sight of Boris Johnson, who can scent…
High life
Patmos I’m in Patmos with four grandchildren, two children, and a wife. I know, I know, it sounds very lower–middle-class…
Marriage guidance
In Competition No. 3208, you were invited to submit a recipe for marital bliss on behalf of an author of…
Real life
The scaffolding pole across the public footpath led to a farcical conversation with the local council. I had been walking…
Aussie Life
When I switched on my TV last Sunday I was not at all surprised to see a three-star Australian general…
Aussie Language
‘Gain of function’ is a chilling new expression—well, new to most of us—that has entered our language as a result…
Lock-picking
In his autobiographical book Surely You’re Joking, Mr Feynman! the late American physicist Richard Feynman described how he amused himself…
2515: Paragon
Unclued lights (including three of two words and two pairs) suggest various versions of a name given by a pair…
