Life
Ha! vs Hahaha: the surprisingly subtle world of Twitter style
I don’t know if you tweet — No! Don’t turn over, I’m not going to get all techie. I do…
The Shading Out of Poetry by Deadline
Like old-time washerwomen floodwater is sousing trees and shrubs out on the drainage. Floating wrack dribbles seaward from their labour.…
Poor little rich meals
Rivea (stupid name) is in the bowels of Bulgari in Knightsbridge, a hotel which looks like a vast Virgin Upper…
The Shading Out of Poetry by Deadline
Like old-time washerwomen floodwater is sousing trees and shrubs out on the drainage. Floating wrack dribbles seaward from their labour.…
A cheerleader to swear by
It wasn’t that long ago when the most exciting event in any British tennis fan’s life was whether Jeremy Bates…
From the horse’s mouth
Banks only lend money to those who can prove they don’t need it and it has not been a happy…
Those ancient Greeks were bores — but things are looking up
Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the picturesque village postcard beautiful. I am lying in…
The risks of being an Englishman on Burns Night
I’m rubbish at public speaking and detest it. Even the thought of reciting an English poem of my choice at…
The dead iPad Sketch
My iPad is dead, that’s what’s wrong with it. The plumage don’t enter into it. But since the blasted thing…
You realise how little you know of anybody when they die
Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, death remains an impenetrable mystery. One moment a person is making jokes…
Bridge
If you and your partner ever want to improve your bidding system, I can’t recommend Phil King highly enough as…
Dear Mary: how can I stop my husband from chopping down all our trees?
Q. My husband — currently unemployed — has started ‘sourcing’ logs from our own smallholding. Chopping down perfectly good trees, sawing logs,…
Magnificent Magnus
Magnus Carlsen has won first prize in the elite Tata Steel tournament at Wijk aan Zee, Holland. Leading scores out…
No. 347
White to play. This is a variation from Carlsen-Aronian, Wijk aan Zee 2015. Black has just played his bishop to…
Election blues
In Competition No. 2882 you were invited to submit a blues song written by a well-known politician contemplating the impending…
2196: Diverse
Round the perimeter clockwise goes a place (6) followed by a description of it (10 words, one hyphened) by one…
To 2193: Celebration II
The MUSICIAN (21), Rod Stewart CBE (25A), was born LXX (16) years ago on 10th January 1945. The associated works…
Come on, Tristram Hunt, if you think you’re hard enough
For a brief moment earlier this week, I thought education might become an issue in the general election campaign. The…
Battle for Britain
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How consumer habits are subject to the law of unintended consequences
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
The spirit of Prohibition lives (if you’re a haggis)
It is an old adage, but still pertinent. ‘Every generalisation about India is true, and so is the opposite.’ The…
What Benedict Cumberbatch didn’t understand about ‘coloured’
Benedict Cumberbatch apologised at length: ‘devastated’, ‘shaming’, ‘offended’, ‘inappropriate’. What had he done? Been caught in a compromising situation or…
The spirit of Prohibition
It is an old adage, but still pertinent. ‘Every generalisation about India is true, and so is the opposite.’ The…
Shopping and viewing
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
My four great loves were unrequited (though I had a chance with Ginger Rogers)
I had a short chat with BBC radio concerning the actor Jack Nicholson, whom I knew slightly during the Seventies…
