Life
So farewell, Alastair Cook: a wonderful cricketer and exemplary sportsman
I first became aware of Alastair Cook in the Ashes summer of 2005 when he was named the Young Cricketer…
Dear Mary: I can’t put names to faces – and it’s starting to upset friends
Q. I am in my mid-sixties and have started to suffer from nominal aphasia. At a recent wedding in the…
I am served up a crime against breakfast: Sketch reviewed
Sketch is a restaurant and art gallery in Conduit Street, Mayfair. There is a photograph of the Queen in the…
Optics: stingy pub measures and politicians’ images
If you’d like to buy a copy of Newton’s Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours…
Wild flowers and mountain peaks are no substitute for a pretty woman
Gstaad The pastoral heaven of this place can get very dull during the summer months. Green hillsides, neat farmsteads, pleasing…
What would Oscar tell his dad first about our eventful fortnight in the south of France?
I was present in the room when Oscar encountered his father for the first time since returning from his fortnight…
When you compare ragwort to Islamic extremism, who should be more offended?
When I made a joke about ragwort being like Islamic extremism, I expected someone to write in. I was fully…
Why Goodwood is the toughest course for jockeys
Having spent most of my life among politicians I guess I have become unaccustomed to candour. The only example I…
Bridge
All the best players today are technically excellent in card play. They know all the odds and end plays to…
Shak attack
The Azeri grandmaster Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has been distinguishing himself recently at both classical and speed chess time limits. Last month…
no. 521
White to play. This is from Mamedyarov–Georgiadis, Biel 2018. Many of Mamedyarov’s games feature a kingside attack based upon a…
Pundemic
In Competition No. 3063 you were invited to submit a poem about puns containing puns. Dryden regarded paronomasia as…
2374: Watch your step
The unclued lights (three of two words) are of a kind. Across 1 Slices top of sausage in…
to 2371: In a paddy
The unclued lights and those clued without thematic definition (2, 11, 26, 33 and 42) are Irish forenames. Nuala Considine’s…
Why is a BBC executive calling for the removal of middle-aged white men from television?
Cassian Harrison, the editor of BBC Four, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival last week that no one wants to…
The Battle for Britain
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Watch out comrade: big business is turning communist
Is it me, or is business becoming a teeny-weeny bit Stalinist? Common features include 1) Paranoia about political ideology; 2)…
Dear Mary: How can I weed out the party ‘flakes’?
Q. I invited four younger colleagues, all in their mid to late thirties, to go for a meal at a…
The great Seven Stars – but not, alas, its furry bar staff – is immune to change
Roy Hattersley once wrote a plangent passage about a painful aspect of the human condition: the short span of animals’…
1880s slang: How to fig a nag and pitch a snide
‘I want my money back,’ said my husband. ‘This is from the 1880s, not the 1980s.’ He looked up from…
My marriage secret? I’m a faithless husband, but a good one
This was a real surprise, and on my birthday (11 August) to boot: a grown man, whose parents I used…
A spiritual journey to see some very expensive paintings
The Villa Carnignac art gallery is located on a Mediterranean island off the French Riviera called Porquerolles. Purpose-built to show…
I am high as a Kite on gloss paint (excuse the pun)
After I had been glossing the woodwork for a few days, I started to feel light-headed. It hadn’t occurred to…
I’m taking the bull by the horns and heading to the prize show
Laikipia ‘This year we’re too broke to take our cattle to the show,’ I told Mark. For six months we…
Bridge
Long-married couples are notoriously intolerant of one another at the bridge table. It’s as if all their pent-up irritation comes…
