Life
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…
Language
Is it just me, or have others noticed that heterosexual couples have lost access to the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’?…
Puzzle no. 644
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by Philip Hamilton Williams, Birmingham Post, 1890. Answers should be emailed…
We’ll always have Paris
Some friends claim to be making marks on the wall to count the days until liberation. Ah, the forgotten delights…
Dear Mary
Q. I hesitate to bring you this problem, but I suspect it is not that uncommon. Early in our very…
Cross purposes
I was once asked by a previous editor of the Timeshow to increase sales of the paper. I was slightly…
Formica
If I ever again accompany my husband to a medical conference in Spain, and want to tell my hosts that…
The battle for Britain
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Real life
‘Have you had your jab, Margery?’ said one Surrey lady to another in the queue for take-away coffee at the…
How I learned to love audio books
According to a charity called Fight For Sight, 38 per cent of people who’ve been using screens more during lockdown…
Low life
Around the time that poor M. Macron was casting televised aspersions on the AstraZeneca jab, I was offered one by…
