Life
no. 509
Black to play. This is from Pillsbury-Lasker, St Petersburg 1895/96. Black has sacrificed two rooks for a bishop to drive the…
Royal treatment
In Competition No. 3051 you were invited to supply an entry by a well-known diarist describing the wedding day of…
2362: Men of note IV
The unclued lights are of a kind. Ignore all accents and diacritical marks throughout the puzzle. The fifth letter of…
to 2359: Down
The unclued lights can be preceded by BLUE which was hidden at the start of the third row and had…
How to cope with unsold tickets and empty halls: my advice to Owen Jones
My heart goes out to Owen Jones. The left-wing journalist is one of the headliners at a Labour party fund-raiser…
The Battle for Britain
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Why human nature means most economic models are doomed from the start
History records many well conceived and apparently logical grand plans for the betterment of mankind. Sadly such ideas almost always…
Farewell to a bottle and a half per day – I have finally embarked on a diet
Are there still travelling fairs? In many villages, they used to be part of the annual round. For weeks, the…
Unconscious bias: is Starbucks like the old Met Police?
Starbucks closed its 8,000 American coffee shops for half a day to give staff unconscious bias training. Training is to…
Were all those young lives lost at Normandy in vain?
I’m back in New York and digesting the five glorious days spent in Normandy. What was the fighting all about,…
Was our Airbnb host a closet toreador?
We were standing in the tiny hall: me, Catriona, Annette and her toy Yorkshire terrier, Ahmed. It was our first…
Now I know how the Karate Kid felt
Now I know how the Karate Kid felt. Two hours after I began oiling the newly laid deck in my…
The joys of early rising
Laikipia I wake at 4 a.m. these days. At that time you might hear a lion or a braying zebra,…
Bridge
Not many players can pull a fast one on Gunnar Hallberg. The seasoned Swede, who came to live over here…
Sherpa
My Great Predecessors is an indispensable guide to the achievements, style and best games of the former world chess champions.…
no. 508
Black to play. This is from Paulsen-Morphy, New York 1857. Having sacrificed his queen to expose the white king, Morphy continued…
2361: Snoot
Unclued lights are anagrams of eight words which are of a kind. Across 1 Result of hooker’s foul work?…
to 2358: Poem IV
The poem was ‘Composed upon WESTMINSTER (1A) Bridge’ by William WORDSWORTH (1D). The words are ASLEEP (20), DOMES (36), EARTH…
Why have I bought a car I don’t actually like?
I am currently in Brittany with the family, having made the 11-hour drive from London on Monday. It sounds like…
The Battle for Britain
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Gareth Bale’s megabucks are not a pretty sight
I must have missed the memo when it became compulsory for major football matches to operate as a marketing opportunity…
Dear Mary: Is it vulgar to give money as a wedding gift?
Q. I work at a desk by a window which looks out on to the street where I live. I…
Food that’s prettier than you are: The Petersham reviewed
The Petersham is a fading hotel on Richmond Hill. I went to a bar mitzvah there in 1986, which gives…
Like ‘gammon’, ‘spasmodic’ was a term to put down a despised tendency
To find out why the poetry of Ebenezer Jones was thought execrably bad, I turned to The Spectator of September…
Dispatch from Pegasus Bridge, Normandy
Pegasus Bridge, Normandy We’re taking morning coffee at the Café Gondrée, which skirts the bridge. It still belongs to…
