Life
Lockdown may kill me
I have a new job, which is maintaining a website called Lockdown Sceptics (lockdownsceptics.org). It’s a compendium of evidence that…
Dear Mary
Q. For me the hallmark of a really close friend is someone with whom you feel comfortable enough to bring…
Wine to lock down
I was once invited to the Cheltenham races and found the experience underwhelming. Everything was too respectable: not nearly Hibernian…
to 2454: 17 Across
The thirteen unclued lights are all breads, hence the puzzle’s real title at 17A. First prizeNicholas Grogan, Purley, Surrey Runners-up…
Bridge
My entertainment last week was watching the NN-Cup, a ‘Goulash’ tournament normally held in Moscow, now played online for the…
Have you caught the remote-working bug?
One of the few benefits to emerge from this pandemic is that the world’s population has been given a crash…
Floor
In the game of ‘U’ and ‘Non-U’, begun by Alan S.C. Ross (1907-80) and popularised in Nancy Mitford’s volume Noblesse…
Selfie
In Competition No. 3148 you were asked to imagine what the result might have been had a well-known writer slipped…
2457: Beginning
Unclued lights (including one of two words) suggest a section of a sequence whose final member will appear in the…
Online Nations Cup
Fifty years ago, the USSR faced a ‘Rest of the World’ team in a match in Belgrade, with the likes…
The Battle for Britain
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The Turf
There is racing elsewhere in the world. It restarted in France on Monday, la course de chevaux being classed in…
Hope in a takeaway bag
You don’t dine in the age of pandemic: you scuttle about in the wreckage. If you can afford food, and…
Going solo
In Competition No. 3147 you were invited to submit tips on social isolation in the style of a well-known writer.…
High life
Gstaad Let me begin with a salute to the winner of this year’s Sir Jimmy Goldsmith prize: Professor Neil Ferguson.…
Low life
They made a better job of sorting out my waterworks
Emperor Ferguson has no clothes
I originally had Neil Ferguson down as a kind of Henry Kissinger figure. The professor of mathematical biology at Imperial…
Dear Mary
Q To your correspondent with a guest whose table manners offend (2 May), you suggest screening him off with a…
The Battle for Britain
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Solution to 2453: All Right?
Unclued lights were characters in the musical Oklahoma!, 2/20, 4A, 10, 22, 24, 30, 35/15D. They are AUNT ELLER, WILL…
Real life
The rain showers had a strange and wondrous effect. All the cyclists, joggers and dog walkers that were coming from…
Wild life
I keep thinking what I’ll do when we regain our liberty — and I picture that beer at the end…
Bridge
This weekend should have been the Schapiro Spring Foursomes, sponsored by Helen S., widow of the legendary Boris. Held in…
Puzzle no. 603
Black to play. Ding–Nakamura, Magnus -Carlsen Invitational, April 2020. The position appears sterile, but Nakamura spotted a clever winning move.…
Anyone for a self-isolation Olympics?
In Mr Alton’s absence, I thought readers might want a column about sport. The problem is that I’m largely indifferent…
