Life
Poison pen
In Competition No. 3043 you were invited to provide a short story inspired by the Salisbury poisonings. Ian McEwan,…
2354: Pioneering
Two unclued lights form a three-word phrase. Clues in italics are cryptic indications of partial answers; in each case, the…
to 2351: Triplets
Unclued lights associated with IRIS are: flowers (2, 11, 40), Greek goddesses (10, 16, 30), and parts of the eye…
I used to think I was smarter than my wife. Not anymore
According to new research published in Advances in Physiology Education, men tend to significantly overestimate their own intelligence whereas women…
Battle for Britain
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Where’s the internet revolution they promised us?
At the risk of sounding like Jean Baudrillard, I would like to suggest that the internet revolution has not yet…
Dear Mary: our son’s future in-laws want to play social oneupmanship with us
Q. We were about to send off to the printers the invitation for our son’s wedding (we agreed to do…
Too much too young: allow some wines to sleep long and peacefully
This April is the cruellest month, but not in the sense that Eliot intended. Memory and desire are mixed: memory…
Around v about: British English v American – not to mention across
Crooning is I think the word to describe what my husband was doing to the lyrics of a Beach Boys…
In The US of A, it’s a woman’s, woman’s, woman’s world!
New York If Albanian television had shown the programme CBS did last week — with a woman who has sex…
I try to cut the hypocrisy when speaking to my boy – but it’s tough sometimes
My boy rang the other night. He said he and his wife had bought tickets to see Ed Sheeran at…
I have broken a mirror — only seven years bad luck to go!
The broken mirror lay in hundreds of shattered pieces on my bathroom floor, having fallen off the wall while I…
Farming is a hard life no matter where you do it
Laikipia, Kenya Erupe is a Kenyan farmer. He owns a smallholding of a few acres not far from my own…
Bridge
It was about 20 years ago that I first became friends with Janet de Botton, and urged her to take…
Space travel
No, not the type of space travel allegedly enjoyed by the World Chess Federation president, Kirsan Ilumzinov, during his self-confessed…
no. 500
White to play. This position is from Jones-Deac, European Team Championship, Batumi 2018. Can you spot White’s crushing breakthrough? Answers…
Carroll in La La Land
In Competition No. 3042, a challenge inspired by the American parodist Frank Jacobs’s 1975 version of ‘Jabberwocky’, ‘As If Lewis…
2353: Too many
The unclued lights, three of two words and four pairs are of a kind. Elsewhere, ignore two accents. Across…
to 2350: Pieces
The unclued lights are classical French plays (‘PIÈCES’) by Corneille (9, 18, 21A), Molière (11, 23, and 21D/29) and Racine (1A,…
A very British response to a death at a funeral
Something very odd occurred at a funeral I attended last week — somebody died. I don’t mean the person who…
The Battle for Britain
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Cricket’s ball-tampering scandal has been nothing but a tearful pantomime
I haven’t seen so many men crying since the end of A Tale of Two Cities at the Scala Cinema…
Dear Mary: How do we deal with our host’s sudden, terrifying rages?
Q. Along with five of my favourite people, I’ve been invited again to what should be an idyllic house party…
How Soho became so-so: Kettner’s Townhouse reviewed
Sometimes I fret that Soho House & Co is doing to this column what it does to London. It places…
He, they, fae, fer or ze? Check your pronouns
Jay Bernard won the Ted Hughes Award last week. I managed to hear a snippet of the winning poem on Today…
