Life
World shaking
Shake Shack is a hamburger restaurant in Covent Garden market. It came from New York and it is as needy…
Speculation season
It’s been a long, hot, soccerless holiday. There has been football about — the women’s European Championship, for example, and…
Taki: What Roger Federer and Anthony Weiner have in common
Gstaad One possesses youth, talent, fame, even beauty, the other none of the above except arrogance, physical repulsiveness and…
His first night out in three weeks and Jeremy Clarke failed to pull
I haven’t been out for three weeks and I’m up for a big night. To prove it I’m wearing my…
Melissa Kite is punished for ignoring the Madonna of the sea
‘Benvenuti alla Small Cluster Band!’ And about time, too. We had been sitting in the Castello in Castellabate for half…
Why don’t the Italians ask me to translate their restaurant menus?
When we bought the farmhouse in Tuscany, where I am now, more than 40 years ago, there were only two…
Qataris invest heavily in British bloodstock
A fresh new breeze is wafting through British racing. Led by the enthusiastic Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, the Qatar ruling…
Bridge
I haven’t played rubber bridge for a few years now (the demands of young children), but recently I’ve been hearing…
Il miglior fabbro
Lothar Schmid, chess grandmaster, the world’s greatest collector of chess books and the only arbiter trusted by Bobby Fischer, died…
no. 277
White to play. This position is from Keene-Eley, Whitby 1964. White’s next move won at once. What did he play?…
The new black
In Competition 2808 you were invited to invent a new addition to the genre that already includes Tartan Noir and…
2124: Pack
Seven unclued lights are words that may be regarded as 13 18. The remaining unclued light supplies the material with…
Solution to 2121: Take Care
All the unclued lights mean ‘Goodbye’. First prize Alan Donovan, Croydon, Surrey Runners-up Mary Varela, Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex; Geoffrey…
Britain is now a socialist utopia
Scarcely a day passes, it seems, without another book landing with a thud on my desk that bemoans the rise…
Dave
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Why the NHS is like a kitten
Of all the strange behaviours of the rich, owning horses long struck me as the most bizarre. A horse, when…
Dear Mary
Q. I very recently attended my son’s black-tie leavers’ ball at his school on one of the hottest evenings of…
When Glyndebourne is the most perfect place on earth
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
Mind your language: The springs before the Arab Spring
Two hundred and forty-years ago next Tuesday, Thomas Gray was buried in his mother’s grave in Stoke Poges churchyard. In…
Bottled opera
Glyndebourne. There is no single quintessential example of English scenery, but this is one of the finest. The landscape is …
The turf
A fresh new breeze is wafting through British racing. Led by the enthusiastic Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, the Qatar ruling…
Why the NHS is like a kitten
Of all the strange behaviours of the rich, owning horses long struck me as the most bizarre. A horse, when…
Taki: The morality of karate
Thun ‘Mokusoo!’ All 200 of us already on our knees and sitting on our heels in the Japanese ‘seiza’ position…
Jeremy Clarke: Despite the rioting and suicides, there’s nowhere quite like Dartmoor
‘How was your journey?’ I said. In summer, the place next door is let to visitors on a weekly basis.…
Will Melissa Kite’s former Italian waiter boyfriend stir up trouble again?
‘Piccolo problemo.’ Luigi, the hotel manager, delivered the fateful news as he served me my first lemon soda of the…
