Life
Low life
On Monday morning I was in a blind panic. The deadline for posted manuscript entries to the Daily Mail First…
Low life
On Monday morning I was in a blind panic. The deadline for posted manuscript entries to the Daily Mail First…
Illegitimate
‘The Archbishop of Canterbury has discovered he is the illegitimate son of Sir Winston Churchill’s last private secretary,’ Charles Moore…
Real life
I am becoming the Basil Fawlty of Airbnb. Almost everything that tormented Basil has tormented me since I started taking…
Well done Danny, but Jordan will come back
Well here’s a thing: we’ve just had the first English bloke to win the Masters. Sure, an Englishman has won…
My confession: I began dodging tax aged eight
As someone who still entertains hope of becoming a member of Parliament one day, I’d better come clean about my…
My confession: I began dodging tax aged eight
As someone who still entertains hope of becoming a member of Parliament one day, I’d better come clean about my…
National review
With great victories in Flat racing you witness hats-in-the-air exultation. You see the pride of trainers who nurtured the winner…
National review
With great victories in Flat racing you witness hats-in-the-air exultation. You see the pride of trainers who nurtured the winner…
Bridge
Can there be a game more humiliating than Bridge? Last weekend the boys and I went to Warsaw to play…
Modern feminists should come to me if they want the truth about sex
New York Even after all these years, I’m still at times floored by the scale of the place. And…
A game of chess with my grandson and a dead mouse
The younger grandson, Klynton, four, has got in the habit recently of thrusting his hands in my trouser pockets and…
Penury dictates that I find more lucrative work — but I can’t afford to
My adventures in penury land me with two job applications on my screen, one for MI6, one for Sainsbury’s. Do…
Trying to smear Europhiles just makes me more pro-EU
Forgive me if I feel a little depressed at the moment. There are a lot of contributory factors — among…
Bridge
Well done to Janet and her team for their victory at the London Easter Congress. My own team — David…
Sergey’s sensation
Sergey Karjakin, who in 2002 became the world’s youngest-ever grandmaster at the age of 12 years and seven months, has…
No. 403
White to play. This is a variation from Aronian-Svidler, Moscow 2016. In this game Aronian misplayed his attack and Svidler…
Gender reassignment
In Competition No. 2942 you were invited to submit a rhyme incorporating the lines ‘What are little girls made of?’…
2255: In the pink
Four unclued lights (eight words in all) form a phrase describing an activity. The other unclued lights give the author,…
To 2252: Writer deploys me
The works were Striding Folly (anagram of 11/22), Whose Body? (36/1D), The Nine Tailors (2/48), Strong Poison (9/30) and Gaudy…
A big hand for the two-faced tax hacks of the Guardian
Something odd happened at the Guardian on Monday as the paper’s editorial staff were basking in the glow of their…
Battle for Britain
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What makes Argos worth £1.4 billion? I reckon I know
When I was at school in the 1970s, some of the richer kids would come back from their summer holidays…
Dear Mary: How can I make a conversation-stopping gaffe go away?
Q. What should a host do when a guest says something so embarrassing in front of the assembled company that…
The kindest man in the Bordeaux wine business
There was a moment during the war when De Gaulle was being more than usually impossible. Roosevelt, furious, asked Churchill…
