Life
Puzzle No. 662
White to play and mate in two. Composed by Sam Loyd, Sunny South, 1885. Nearly all Black’s legal moves can…
Give us a clue
In Competition No. 3207, you were invited to supply an extract from a thriller, written by a well-known politician, that…
The Battle for Britain
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Football’s never coming home
I failed a moral test last weekend. A friend offered me a free ticket to the Euro 2020 final and…
Dear Mary
Q. I have been double-vaccinated but am especially at risk and, since I know of at least four double-vaccinated people…
Solution to 2512: Impertinence
CHERRY, NETTLE, SMOKE, PLUM-PUDDING, BEES, EGG, SUNBEAM and WIND are the perimetric answers to riddles posed by NUTKIN in The…
The bonkers credentials game
Sometimes the opposite of a good idea is, as Niels Bohr said, another good idea. But the converse is also…
Pinged
‘Ping, ping, ping went the bell,’ sang my husband, making his eyes wide and jigging in his best imitation of…
Bridge
If someone had told me in February 2020 that virtually the whole world would be going into lockdown for well…
Low life
Where the 36th (Ulster) Division attacked at 7.30 a.m. on the first morning of the Battle of the Somme in…
Real life
Since telling the shoot we won’t let them use the land we rent, we have been beset by a series…
A rosé future
Some time ago, I wrote that rosé should only be drunk south of Lyon, but one could start on the…
High life
I write this as a follow-up to last week’s essay on muzzling after making whoopee. I’m on my way to…
Kiwi Life
One of my goals over the coming months is to watch an entire rugby game for the first time in…
Aussie Language
We are told that sexual assault and sexual harassment happen because men don’t understand consent. NSW has a law before…
The turf
When only four horses were declared to contest this year’s Coral Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, there were the usual…
Low Life
Vernon fancies this new age elfin-faced French woman who owns and runs a restaurant. She’s hard-working, she’s a reader, and…
Real life
‘Oh, I do so love to see all the lovely pheasants running around the place,’ said the lady walking the…
Soccer
I have never been a soccer mom, described in the Washington Post as ‘the overburdened, middle-income working mother who ferries…
High life
Gstaad After six-and-a-half months apart, I had no trouble recognising my wife. Out she came on to the driveway to…
Ritz assessment
The Ritz is still here, and still gaudy. No grand hotel in London feels quite so complete, if pink; as…
Bridge
Top bridge players have a spooky ability to recall thousands of hands, often from many years back. With so many…
The new youngest grandmaster
Abhimanyu Mishra became the world’s youngest grandmaster last month, at 12 years and 4 months old. The boy from New…
2514: Welcome back
Unclued lights (one of two words, the others paired) are of a kind. Across 7Lace branches left in fruit tree (6)…
Solution to 2511: Changing places
The unclued lights form pairs of anagrams, one word in each pair being a place-name: 1A/6A, 1D/21, 6D/13, 11/38, 19/30…
