Life
2399: Lines of work
Eight unclued entries (two of two words, one hyphened) form a folk rhyme used as the basis for the first…
to 2396: Reader …,
Unclued lights were husbands (40A) of Jane Austen’s heroines. First prize Alison Hinder, Sholing, SouthamptonRunners-up Janet Dibley, Polegate, East Sussex;…
Why is it only privately educated women who get to lecture people about ‘oppression’?
Scarcely a week passes without a privately educated young woman with a successful career in journalism publishing a book about…
The Battle for Britain
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Are IQ tests really the best way to measure nature vs nurture?
I have a dim memory from 1970 of a primly dressed distant relative visiting in a Baby Austin. This, I…
Dear Mary: what’s the polite way to ascertain someone’s gender?
Q. When my mother was widowed ten years ago she decided to take in lodgers to pay the gardener’s bills…
Red meat and red wine: the ideal way to spend the first Sunday of Lent
Life is far too important to be taken seriously. At least, that was the conclusion which we meandered towards as…
Why the OED says ‘coloured’ is offensive
‘The term coloured, is an outdated, offensive and revealing choice of words,’ tweeted Diane Abbott last week in response to Amber…
Watching my grandchildren schussing down a mountain is what makes me happy now
Gstaad As everyone knows, the definition of serendipity is searching for a needle in a haystack, and instead finding…
I hadn’t had a drink in six weeks but that was seven hours, three pubs and a club ago…
Standing in a messy kitchen at the tendril tip of a county line at three o’clock in the morning, Trev…
My life is like that new Netflix series Russian Doll – a series of recurring crises
Russian Doll is a brilliant new Netflix drama in which a woman relives the same night over and over again.…
For now, here in Laikipia we have the only population of black panthers in the world
Laikipia A female black panther was recently photographed at our neighbours’ place. Exactly like Kipling’s Bagheera, she was ‘inky…
Susanna Gross
Geir Helgemo is the most revered bridge player in the world — and that isn’t about to change just because…
Bunratty
The Bunratty tournament in Ireland is one of the highlights of the chess year and always attracts an impressive field.…
no. 544
White to play. This position is from Hebden-Williams, Bunratty 2019. How did White finish in fine style? Answers to me…
Political noir
In Competition No. 3088 you were invited to submit a short story in the style of hard-boiled crime fiction set…
2398: All steamed up
The unclued lights (five of two words, two pairs and a singleton) are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer. …
2395: Concise Crossword
The seven concise clues lead to: heALth centre (3,31), HEARTbreak (9), midrIFf (26), last of alL (40), out of afRIca…
Gone are the days when the middle class could afford to go skiing
It won’t be news to readers of The Spectator that one of the long-term effects of globalisation is the hollowing…
The Battle for Britain
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Meet Chris Gayle, the coolest man in sport
It can’t be a coincidence that two of the coolest sportsmen on the planet are from the same place, Jamaica.…
Dear Mary: what should we do about a possible thief in our school dormitory?
Q. I run a very small mail-order company from home. Recently I received an exceptionally rude email from a disgruntled…
Pale pomp and £100 Beijing duck: Imperial Treasure reviewed
Imperial Treasure is a restaurant in the part of St James’s where Leopold von Hoesch, the German ambassador to George…
‘One fell swoop’ has become a cliche, but where does it come from?
The Sun, reviewing a new laptop from Huawei, mentioned a combined fingerprint sensor and on-switch that lets users ‘power up and…
I’ve contributed greatly to animal welfare, via the casino
A rare British species, a womanising ex-foreign secretary, kissed and told about his brief affair with a yellow-eyed temptress last…
