Life
I’ve resorted to cooking
We cannot bear more drive-through or take-out or near-fatal snack. I am convinced of the boredom of my female ancestors,…
Dear Mary
Q. Just before Covid, we moved out of London with the intention of having a quiet life in the country.…
The Battle for Britain
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Swathe
At Glastonbury in 2017 ‘a whole swathe of young people had a political awakening’, chanting ‘Oh, Jeremy Corbyn’, said the…
Bridge
What do we want? We want to play bridge. But who anticipated Covid-19 was going to close every bridge club…
Low life
Avid Spectator reader Mr Brown had endured the very strictest of lockdowns for family health reasons in Tunbridge Wells. Since…
Hats off to Liverpool
Where were we? Oh yes, Liverpool were running away with the Premier League and a mere three months later have…
Wild life
As we all know by now, the pandemic distorts time like a concertina. Life before March is a world that…
Real Life
My friend turned up wearing a snorkelling mask, beneath which she had tied a bandana around her mouth. On her…
High life
Gstaad A friend of mine who lives here wants to start a literary festival and asked me if I had…
The censorship spiral
It’s open season on mavericks and dissenters at the moment. If you publicly challenge any of the sacred nostrums of…
Puzzle no. 611
White to play. From the ridiculous to the sublime. According to the ‘Chess Notes’ website, a game won by Edward…
2464: Topsy-turvy
14 which is unclued below, but is clued elsewhere, has to be divided into three components (one a Spanish…
Solution to 2461: Hot off?
The unclued lights include the name of a British daily newspaper; 3/26A, 9/35, 12, 24, 28/31D and 34/21. First…
Al fresco
In Competition No. 3155 you were invited to supply a poem entitled ‘The Picnic’. This challenge was prompted by a…
Twitch pageant
Chess has much in common with video games — not least, the eager disdain of uninformed critics. An 1859 article…
Aussie Life
Everyone wants to get high and have sex while saving money. So says P. J. O’Rourke, the political satirist who…
Peaty giant, Tuscan flower
The virus is in retreat, the lock-down is crumbling, the sherbet dispensaries will shortly reopen and there is a second…
Who watches the watchdog?
At the beginning of April, I became so frustrated by the supine coverage of the government’s response to the coronavirus…
Ventriloquising
‘What! No one told me,’ my husband shouted when I explained that the Hebdomadal Council at Oxford no longer existed…
Network failures
You can’t discuss racial inequality without using the N-word. And you can’t debate social justice without adding the C-word and…
The Battle for Britain
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Real life
‘Have you met the man who keeps his horses in this field?’ said one silver-haired lady to the other, as…
The turf
Royal Ascot it wasn’t: for the first time in her 68-year reign, thanks to Covid-19, the Queen was not there.…
Bridge
I’m not a great fan of online bridge but I must admit, lockdown has provided a real opportunity for players…
