Life
Lost love
In Competition No. 3202, you were invited to replace the word ‘love’ in a well-known book title of your choice…
High life
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, or at least private party time. Yours truly is an extra man…
Aussie Life
The cold snap enveloping much of NSW at time of writing won’t help regional communities battling the mouse plague, such…
Aussie Language
A campaign is needed against the word ‘partner’—so I have started one. It was launched on Peta Credlin’s program on…
Relative merits
Meritocracy, a word coined by my father, gets a bad press these days. Two recent books — The Meritocracy Trap…
Taking charge
As a wise colleague once said: ‘Yesterday is a great time to buy a computer, because you have already enjoyed…
Dear Mary
Q. At a lunch party, I was getting on so well with someone I had not met before. She knew…
The Battle for Britain
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Overhaul
Last week, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer were overhauling their stores. Football clubs were madly overhauling teams and we…
Hybrid chess
Chess was played by cable in the 19th century because… well, why not? And because everything old is new again,…
to 2506: Summer’s voice
The unclued lights are ferns: RUSTY-BACK (26/5A), WALL RUE (48/7A), MAIDENHAIR (1D/11), OSMUNDA (18), BIRD’S-NEST (20/45) and POLYPODY (24). PTERIDOMANIA…
Commercial gain
In Competition No. 3201, a contest inspired by Salman ‘naughty but nice’ Rushdie, you were invited to submit advertising copy…
Wild life
Kenya The evening before the assault on Addis Ababa, my guide Girmay and I ventured into a complex stuffed with…
2509: Current description
A six-word ‘current description’ (in ODQ) and the name of the author (three words) run clockwise round the perimeter starting…
Puzzle No. 656
Black to play. Vocaturo–Gokerkan, May 2021. After a long defence, White’s last move 101 Nf1-e3 was a decisive error. Which…
Bridge
It’s hard to think of anything more expensive at the bridge table than doubling the opponents and then watching them…
Low life
The porter rolled me off the trolley and on to the bed, wished me a good day and departed. My…
Real life
‘You’ll come back when you’re in enough pain,’ said the osteopath as I walked out of his door. That was…
Haut topic
It seemed a suitable topic for a bank holiday. We were discussing Haut-Brion, a bank-breaking wine. There is a question…
High life
New York The acerbic writer Gore Vidal was once asked which period of history he would choose to have lived…
Aussie Life
It’s always sad to see the end of a love affair, particularly when the lovers had seemed so enraptured of…
Aussie Language
Writing in The Speccie Dot Wordsworth said: ‘The most effective weapon in cultural warfare is to find a form of…
Where free speech is a matter of life and death
Last August I wrote a column in The Spectator’s US edition urging Donald Trump to take a leaf out of…
The Battle for Britain
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Daredevil kings
The fifth match game between Potter and Zukertort, played in London in 1875, saw a dogged struggle. The final position…
