Life
Dear Mary: How do I tell my landlords they’ve ruined my life?
Q. For some time I have been spoiled by paying a small rent for a central flat belonging to absentee…
Kilchoman isn’t a good whisky; it’s a great one
‘What seas what shore what grey rocks what water lapping the bow’. So evocative, which seems strange: one would have…
Trahison des clercs — a phrase that dates back all the way to 1927
I had long associated the phrase trahison des clercs with the writer Geoffrey Wheatcroft, though I can’t put my finger…
I dream of my perfect state: Sparta
Gstaad It was nostalgia time at Prince Victor Emmanuel’s birthday party here, with many old friends reminiscing about our youthful…
The vomit-cleaners of YouTube
My hangover was what the great Kingsley Amis describes in his Everyday Drinking guide as a ‘metaphysical’ hangover. Apart from…
I can’t live without Jane Fonda
Everything since the ZX Spectrum has pretty much left me cold. Ghetto blasters, Sony Walkmans, CDs, Apple Macs, iPods, PlayStations……
Bridge
It’s nice being part of a community. That’s how bridge is: over the years, you get to know, or recognise,…
Another Troy
One of the sharpest lines in the Ruy Lopez (1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 f5) is widely…
no. 494
Black to play. This position is from Drozdowski-Tay, chess.com 2014. Black played 1 … Qg6 which was good enough to…
On the way out
In Competition No. 3036 you were invited to provide a resignation letter in the style of a well-known author. I…
2347: Capital letters
Each of the eight unclued lights is a series of letters in alphabetical order which can be formed into eight…
to 2344: I’m away
The unclued lights can be preceded by or followed by the unclued word DOCTOR, which explains why I (Doc) am…
My children have turned my weight loss into the Stanford prison experiment
I’ve become obsessed with my BMI. For those of you who don’t know, it stands for body mass index and…
The Battle for Britain
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Hate the Winter Olympics? Here’s why you’re wrong
Despite the best efforts of this column (and the BBC), too many Brits regard the Winter Olympics with the same…
Dear Mary: how can we dissuade friends from visiting when one of us is ill?
Q. Obviously one is delighted to have visits from close friends and family when one’s spouse is ailing, but how…
A Soho steak house that used to be a pornographic cinema: Sophie’s reviewed
Sophie’s lives in an old pornographic cinema at the south end of Great Windmill Street, Soho. It is opposite McDonald’s…
From Jeeves to Johnson: language and literary references in Boris’s speech
In Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves, Bertie is moved to reward his inestimable valet for solving the unsolvable. Before requesting the…
Taki: My #MeToo moment
#MeToo! It happened right here, in Gstaad, last week. A man in his mid-fifties, about six foot tall and 165lb,…
Even the BBC’s recipes are politically correct
I’m cooking almost full-time for my poor old Mum and learning on the job: shepherd’s pie, roast pork, cauliflower cheese.…
I’ve faked my own iPhone death
After much thought, I am toying with the idea of faking my own death. I mean in a virtual sense,…
What makes a champion jockey
Write a few books and you have to listen politely at parties as people who have never opened yours tell…
Bridge
August 2015 will be remembered as a landmark for World Bridge. There had long been talk among bridge players about…
Knight outriders
A good rule of thumb is to avoid sending off knights to excursions at the edge of the board, where…
no. 493
White to play. This position is from Capablanca-Fonaroff, New York 1918. Once again there is a knight on h6. What…
