Life
This is what every menu should look like
The appallingly bad photograph below was taken on my mobile phone about 15 years ago. It shows the menu layout…
Dear Mary: unacceptable behaviour at a book signing
Q. At a recent literary festival I attended a talk with a high-profile octogenarian writer. I had already bought her…
Banking on wine
Great matters were trembling in the balance. The prime minister needed cash to achieve his objective and as Parliament was…
Mind your language: Bugs, bugs, bugs
If my husband were an insect it might well be a bug — a squat creature imbibing nutriment in liquid form.…
Battle for Britain
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Fabulous Fabiano
Fabiano Caruana notched the result of his life at the Sinquefield Trophy in St Louis last year. Since then he…
No. 370
Black to play. This position is a variation from Kramnik-Naiditsch, Dortmund 2015. How can Black make a decisive material gain?…
Poetry in motion
In Competition No. 2906 you were invited to write a poem about an encounter in an airport. Craig Raine’s poem…
Dear Mary
Q. At a recent literary festival I attended a talk with a high-profile octogenarian writer. I had already bought her…
Banking on wine
Great matters were trembling in the balance. The prime minister needed cash to achieve his objective and as Parliament was…
High life
I have signed an affidavit for a hearing in the High Court stating that Janan Harb was, to my knowledge,…
Long life
I have always been what I suppose one could call a weed, and a cowardly one at that. I never…
Long life
I have always been what I suppose one could call a weed, and a cowardly one at that. I never…
Low life
Watching the daily running of the bulls through Pamplona’s narrow streets online this week has given me a wistful pang…
Low life
Watching the daily running of the bulls through Pamplona’s narrow streets online this week has given me a wistful pang…
Bugs
If my husband were an insect it might well be a bug — a squat creature imbibing nutriment in liquid form.…
Real life
Insomnia has a lot to answer for. I have not been sleeping well for years but a few months ago…
Urban foxes, the ginger menace
Forget about the countryside. When is the government going to do something about the vulpine creatures wreaking havoc in central…
Urban foxes, the ginger menace
Forget about the countryside. When is the government going to do something about the vulpine creatures wreaking havoc in central…
The presentation of choice
The appallingly bad photograph below was taken on my mobile phone about 15 years ago. It shows the menu layout…
Wild life
Laikipia A quarter of a century ago I met two young South African men who had ridden their ponies 1,700…
The staff of The Spectator are straight out of a painting by Norman Rockwell
Wow, what a week. London may be bad for one’s health, but it sure makes it fun on the way…
The chemically castrated are useless at crosswords: true or false?
After hitting me with the cancer diagnosis, the urologist offered me the choice of a longer life in exchange for…
The menopause lost my car keys
Here is what I thought happened. I thought that as I tided my store room at the stables I put…
How strange to feel nostalgic for the 1970s
The 1960s were already more than halfway over when I realised that I was living through what was supposed to…
