Life
to 2404: 1+2 = 3+4
The first and second letters of the unclued lights are the same as the third and fourth ones. All the…
The UN’s extinction warning doesn’t add up
Anyone watching the BBC’s News at Ten on Monday would have been surprised to learn that economic growth poses a…
The Battle for Britain
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Why don’t we see more big infrastructure projects?
In 2012 I finished a meeting in Berlin and headed to Tegel airport. Apparently mine was a historic flight, since…
Dear Mary: What should you do when friends invite you to lunch but don’t offer wine?
Q. I was invited to birthday drinks in London. On my way there the name of someone I haven’t heard…
Save us from fads and change for change’s sake
There is no new thing under the sun. Over the weekend, I read a book which was alarmingly relevant to…
Do MPs actually know what ‘fungible’ means?
‘No darling,’ I said, ‘nothing to do with mushrooms.’ My husband had responded to my exclaiming ‘What does she think…
Sebastian Flyte had nothing on me: memories of a misspent youth
Charlottesville is an enchanting Virginia college town graced by the neoclassical architecture of the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. I flew…
Meet Santini: the world’s worst tourist guide
Santino was unusually short in the leg and, in his mid-twenties, was already rapidly losing his hair. He had recently…
The NHS’s CBT mailshot is a scandal
A leaflet came through my door from the NHS inviting me to take part (if that is the right term)…
Why we should listen to elephants
Laikipia, Kenya ‘An elephant has fallen over,’ said the man running up to me. My first thought was that…
Bridge
‘You know what people say about you?’ Zia Mahmood told me the other day. ‘You play really well but then…
Déjà vu
In my column of 20 April I reported on the overwhelming victory by world champion Magnus Carlsen in the elite Gashimov…
no. 552
Black to play. This position is a variation from Keymer-Carlsen, Grenke 2019. Black is a piece down. What is the…
Cheesy feat
In Competition No. 3096 you were invited to submit a short story that ends ‘I feel like a half-eaten gorgonzola.’…
2406: Heptad
Clockwise round the grid from 6 run the names (9,5,7,6,8,7,8) of the leading members of a group. The unchecked and…
to 2403: Hexad
The second and fourth letters of six unclued lights gave abbreviations of the states forming New England: ACATER (13) Connecticut, ERNIE…
Charities are allowed to be political – if they’re left wing
On Monday, I appeared on Good Morning Britain to debate President Trump’s forthcoming state visit with Asad Rehman, the executive…
The Battle for Britain
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Leeds United is the soap opera which keeps on giving
Say what you like about Elland Road — and in my experience it is not a place to linger —…
Dear Mary: did our friends regift us out-of-date chocolates?
Q. A university friend and I want to get an invitation to a very good shoot owned by a colleague…
Soho hasn’t deteriorated – you have: Kiln reviewed
Each suburban soul yearns for the Soho of their youth. It isn’t that Soho was better in the 1990s when…
A duck ducks and a swift is swift – so what about the lapwing?
Some birds seem inherently comical. I can’t help being amused by the duck taking its name from its habit of…
In praise of privacy
David Niven’s younger son Jamie, now an old man and a bit overweight, approached my table and announced that he…
The joy of scrumpy
‘How’s your day going?’ said the taxi driver as he snapped his knob into drive. If I caught the plane…
