Life
Lottery winners are strikingly unimaginative about spending money
I thought that this week I might write about memory loss, but couldn’t remember if I’d written about it last…
There are echoes of Turkey and Armenia in the revisionist view of the Rwandan genocide
Kenya It’s a long time since I thought of Thaddee, our Kigali stringer when I was covering Rwanda for Reuters.…
Bridge
It’s one of the burning political issues of the day: why don’t more MPs play bridge? Two weeks ago, the…
Comedy of errors
For reasons unknown, the world championship in Sochi between Carlsen and Anand is turning into a catalogue of disastrous blunders…
No: 341
Black to play. This is from Korchnoi-Karpov, World Championship (Game 17), Baguio 1978. Can you spot Black’s winning coup? Answers…
Problem child
In Competition No. 2874 you were invited to submit a scene written by a well-known children’s author of the past…
2189: Offering
One unclued light is the name of a 15A activity requiring the 4A of three things. Answers to clues in…
2186: From the off
Unclued lights (11/1D, 12/35, 15, 18/1D and 22/17) are fences of the Grand National course, together with two famous winners…
Pity I’m a Celebrity’s token old guys
I had thought that my days of being approached by reality show producers hoping to put together a cast of…
Battle for Britain
Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment below.
Why does Amazon think my friend is a kidnapper?
About four years ago, an irate father in Minneapolis walked into his local Target shop with a complaint. He wanted…
Dear Mary: Dealing with your old friends now you’re a big success
Q. Success has come to me in later life with an unfortunate side effect. Since my career has taken off,…
The real French embassy is a restaurant
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
Does Joey Essex know what ‘reem’ actually means?
Joey Essex is a celebrity who appeared in the ‘scripted reality’ programme The Only Way is Essex, named not after…
The real French embassy
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
The dark secrets that your clicks reveal
About four years ago, an irate father in Minneapolis walked into his local Target shop with a complaint. He wanted…
Wild life
Kenya It’s a long time since I thought of Thaddee, our Kigali stringer when I was covering Rwanda for Reuters.…
Unlike the philistine sharks of today, Aleko Goulandris is an art collector of the old school
Aleko Goulandris is my oldest and closest friend. We met in the summer of 1945, at the Semiramis hotel in…
I nearly went lost my mind in southern Spain on the trail of Gerald Brenan
Another writer I once liked very much is Gerald Brenan. Brenan served with distinction in the first world war and…
The impossibility of ordering the right-sized salad
People don’t listen. It’s a relatively new thing. People used to listen, to varying degrees. You had your good listeners…
A trip to Berlin with John Smith before the wall came down
Last Sunday night 8,000 illuminated balloons, tethered along eight miles of Berlin’s former inner-city border between East and West Germany,…
Robin Oakley's Twelve to Follow for 2015 (this year's came out ahead)
November has never been my favourite month, not since the time when as a Rugby-playing student my face was rearranged…
Bridge
It’s always good to know where you draw the line and my line, drawn in thick black ink, was going…
Force Majeure
The common feature of the first two games of the World Championship match between Viswanathan Anand and Magnus Carlsen in…
No. 340
Black to play. This position is a variation from Anand-Carlsen; World Championship, Sochi (Game 1) 2014. Can you spot Black’s…
