Life
Forget your data – it’s your DNA privacy you should be worried about
Nearly ten years ago, a lorry driver known only as ‘Michael Harry K’ adopted an extreme response to combating what…
Dear Mary: How can I pin down flakey party-goers?
Q. My 50th birthday is looming and I am hosting a small dinner in a restaurant. This has proved challenging…
How I found curry heaven in deepest Mayfair: Indian Accent reviewed
Indian Accent is an Indian restaurant in Albermarle Street, deepest Mayfair, on the site of Rohit Khattar’s Chor Bizarre (‘thieves…
Paranoia and The Woman in White
I sat up with a jerk, after contemplating the wallpaper in the television dramatisation of The Woman in White, when…
The rise – and rise – of Trump Derangement Syndrome
New York ‘What do we do with these men?’ thundered a New York Times headline. It was followed by a…
On giving and taking offence
‘Slight prick,’ she said. The nurses all say that before they slide the needle in the upstanding vein in the…
Why suburban ladies really play tennis
Because my mother is always telling me everything will be all right if I join a tennis club, I’ve joined…
Tripping in the African bush
Laikipia, Kenya Neighbours Tom and Jo came by with a bucketful of wild African mushrooms, which they had collected in…
Bridge
Playing rubber bridge the other afternoon for higher stakes than usual (£20 per hundred), I had a memorably miserable time.…
Grenke
The Grenke Chess Classic, played in Karlsruhe and Baden Baden, has been won by Fabiano Caruana, who also won the…
no. 504
White to play. This is a possible variation from Meier-Carlsen, Grenke 2018. Meier could have forced a win in this…
First and last
In Competition No. 3046 you were invited to supply a poem beginning with the last line of any well-known poem…
2357: Half a Drum
Unclued lights make five pairs with something in common. Across 1 Fragrant nuts announced (5) 4 Neat workers secure…
to 2354: Pioneering
Parts indicated in clues in italics must each BREAK NEW GROUND (1A 4A), creating entries at 6, 13, 26, 39…
Here’s what every incel needs: a sex robot
In a recent blogpost, an American economics professor called Robin Hanson asked why it is that income inequality is regarded…
Battle for Britain
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English cricket’s new tournament already looks doomed
Difficult to know quite what to make of The Hundred, which has the feel of being knocked up on the…
Dear Mary: A work colleague has a brain tumour — and his self pity is annoying me
Q. When buying a present for a friend, I would not dream of glugging from the bottle or helping myself…
It reeks of Alan Clark and the 1980s but all is forgiven for the food: Le Gavroche reviewed
Le Gavroche is named for ‘the urchin’ in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and lives in a basement on Upper Brook…
Terf wars and the ludicrous lexicon of feminist theory
Fiore de Henriquez, a sculptor, had a wonderfully high-windowed studio at the bottom of Cadogan Square, where I sometimes visited…
Fascism isn’t rising, but bien-pensant hysteria certainly is
Benito lives! The Blackshirts are here. Fascism is on the march — at least according to Madeleine Albright, secretary of…
Knife skills for eight-year-olds
Pig’s trotters. Lamb’s feet stuffed with their brains. Flayed wild rabbits, all sinew, muscle and eyeballs. Nude chickens with flopping…
Save me from middle managers dressed up as Spiderman
‘You’ve got your essay on your back, then?’ said the stable yard owner as I headed out with Darcy on…
The Grand National proved the naysayers wrong – again
When the photo finish confirmed that Tiger Roll and Davy Russell had held on to win the Grand National by…
Bridge
England had a narrow lead going into the second weekend of the Camrose, with the Irish National team and the…
