Life
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…
2456: So American
Unclued lights (five of two words) are of a kind, singly, three pairs and a trio. Across 11 Ban on…
Pasture
‘We can now see the sunlight and the pasture ahead of us,’ said Boris Johnson on our escape from a…
Magnus wins Magnus Carlsen Invitational
‘I haven’t felt this kind of tension in a long while. This was real!’ Those were Magnus Carlsen’s words, after…
Odd
‘Is this not the oddest news?’ Harriet Smith exclaimed to Emma Woodhouse, on the news that Jane Fairfax and Frank…
The Turf
Seven hundred pages of memoir is stretching it a bit even for an ex-inhabitant of No. 10 with David Cameron’s…
Getting your goat
In Competition No. 3146 you were invited to submit a poem about the goats of Llandudno, who recently ran amok…
Solution to 2452: Comme on dit
The paired unclued lights (1D/6, 14/25, 36/32 and 39/1A) are, AS THEY SAY when the title of the puzzle is…
2455: Shadow boxing
The unclued lights (two of two words and one hyphened), individually or as three pairs are of a kind. The…
Real life
Without making any efforts in that direction, I now know all about a certain telecom firm’s future business plans. My…
