Life
If Tony Blair was still prime minister, I’d be less terrified of Holborn Dining Room
The 1930s aesthetic is not quite as fun as it used to be. You can enjoy the detritus of fascism…
There’s something grotesque about the jargon of Universal Credit
The government (if it hasn’t fallen yet) has found difficulty moving people onto Universal Credit from the benefits that they…
Taki: Should I just move to a cave in France?
Gstaad Do any of you know what cisgender is? I just found out. Cisgender is a term that describes…
Hell — and heaven – on the French Riviera
We drove down from the hills to visit friends of friends with a house by the sea and on the…
Despite me virtually sexting him, my blacksmith is ignoring me — just like all the others before him
Splitting the atom is nothing compared to figuring out how to get hold of your farrier. Why is the farrier…
In defence of the Cheltenham Festival
‘Deer-stalking would be a very fine sport,’ W.S. Gilbert once observed, ‘if the deer had guns too.’ We who love…
Bridge
2018 ended on a very sweet note for my team. We played the London Year End one-day teams tournament —…
Knockout
The 2018 UK Knockout, won by Gawain Jones, ahead of Luke McShane (silver) and Michael Adams (bronze), was played in…
no. 537
White to play. This position is from Jones-McShane, UK Knockout, London 2018. White’s next move was the start of a…
Unauthorised version
In Competition No. 3081 you were invited to supply a parable rewritten in the style of a well-known author. Like…
Stout and bubbly
According to Brewer, a five-word phrase was used to describe a creature, but applies also to a three-word fictional character.…
solution
CHRISTMAS SPIRIT Unclued lights were names of GHOST STORIES by M.R. (MONTAGUE RHODES) JAMES: CASTING (1A) THE (29) RUNES…
Yes, the Brexit debate is robust – but UK politics is moderate, calm and civil
There’s a scene in Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s masterpiece about the collapse of western civilisation, in which a…
The Battle for Britain
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Why it’s so much easier not to speak to people
I recently saw a series of photographs depicting a rural home in China. Pride of place in a grimly furnished…
Dear Mary: We have new friends but can’t bear to eat in their filthy kitchen. What to do?
Q. I note that (Dear Mary, 12 January) you advised your correspondent, resentful of Christmas expenditure, to offer instead ‘mutual…
Forget Dry January – if there was ever a month to drink, this is it
January really is the cruellest month. No wonder some fortunate friends have dodged the column of dreary weather and short…
What lies behind John Bercow’s use of the word ‘colleagues’?
The parliamentary press gallery has in the past given a pair of silver shoe buckles to the Speaker as a…
Why 1919 wasn’t the year it’s cracked up to be
Gstaad The funny thing is that I was at school with a man called Ted Widmer, and I recently read…
I ended New Year’s Eve more sober than I started it
We were eight for dinner on New Year’s Eve: four men and four women with a combined age, I would…
The Kafkaesque nightmare of cancelling my BT broadband
Oh, I suppose I might as well give it a whirl, I thought, as the recorded voice began its dirge:…
Why former prisoners make the best lawyers
Kampala I am terrified of being with former death-row prisoner Susan Kigula. This is because she qualified for her…
Bridge
For those of us who play rubber bridge at TGR’s, the New Year began with the very sad news that…
Three titans
The Dutch grandmaster Genna Sosonko specialises in biographies of the greats of the Soviet era. His earlier forays covered the…
no. 536
Black to play. This position is from Botvinnik-Smyslov, World Championship, Moscow (Game 18) 1958. How could Smyslov have forced instant…
