Life
Have big cities had their day?
About 15 years ago I noticed a few surviving chattel houses in Barbados and wondered what they were. As it…
Dear Mary
Q. Almost a year ago I attended the funeral of my godfather — a bachelor and distant relation whom I…
The Battle for Britain
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Changing the rules
Nothing courts us so nimbly as technology. Perhaps the chess computers have already won you over — I am dazzled…
Puzzle no. 622
Black to play. Jones–McShane, London Chess Classic 2019. Last year I played two games of no-castling chess with Gawain Jones,…
Privates on parade
In Competition No. 3166 you were invited to supply a poem either celebrating or lamenting the cancellation of Philadelphia’s annual…
2475: Poem VI
Unclued lights are ten words taken from a poem quoted in ODQ. The poet’s name (two words) will appear diagonally…
Solution to 2472: All-inclusive
The perimeter quotation is from Mahler. Remaining unclued lights were names of symphonies: 12A Mahler / Schubert; 26A Haydn; 39A…
Real life
Every time I get on a horse I have to face the likelihood that a dog, or pack of dogs,…
High life
Gstaad I’m not usually nonplussed, but this is very strange: the memoir of Barbara Black, the wife of my…
Bridge
My friend Ollie Burgess has just made the bold move of quitting his job in Manchester, and moving to London…
Low life
Hairpin bends in a stony forest. Downhill. Steep, then steeper. Smooth frictionless tarmac. I’ve got the car barely under control.…
It’s all in the timing
Three bottles, three questions that delivered three different answers. I was in Dorset — cannot keep away — enjoying the…
Boris’s critics were right all along
A friend emailed me earlier this week in despair about the Prime Minister. ‘Boris reminds me of a hereditary king…
The turf
It is all, it seems, in the tweaks. So said Aidan O’Brien, Ireland’s master-trainer supreme, before his tough filly Magical…
Bat
My husband may not often be right, but he had some cogent criticism of the much-quoted words of Geoffrey Howe…
Aussie Life & Language
Giles Auty While clearing our cellar recently my wife and I came upon a compact printing press which her late…
Being a do-gooder did me no good
Michael J. Sandel, the Harvard political philosopher, has a lot to answer for. Some armchair psychologists think the reason I…
Real life
A man without a mask appeared to be dying of Covid, or something quite like it, on the London to…
In praise of today’s young footballers
You suspect that a bar of duty-free Toblerone, no matter how supersized, wouldn’t really do the trick when hapless England…
Dear Mary
Q. I have just been out to my first lunch in months. Ten of us sat around a table in…
A flash of life
A ghost review, now, of a ghost restaurant: the Connaught Grill, which is yet to reopen after pandemic shuttered its…
Low life
The old dog was in a companionable frame of mind and she trotted along at my side, glancing up now…
Bridge
The bridge world has lost some glittering stars this (ghastly) year, the latest being France’s Catherine d’Ovidio — multiple world…
Uptick
Political commentators love talking about the optics — the way something looks to voters. Just at the moment, though, everyone…
