Life
No. 328
Black to play. This position is from Ivanchuk-Mamedyarov, Tromsø Olympiad 2014. How did Black win material? Answers to me at…
Tourist misinformation
In Competition No. 2861 you were invited to submit misleading snippets of advice for British tourists travelling abroad. A previous…
2176: ,
The unclued lights (one hyphened, one of two words), individually or as four pairs, are of a kind. Across…
to 2173: Men of note
The unclued lights are COMPOSERS whose surnames start with the letter C. First prize C.R. Haigh, Hassocks, West Sussex…
The mystery of festivals
I wouldn’t describe myself as a veteran of the summer festival circuit, but I’ve been to enough to have a…
The battle for Britain
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Putting Fletcher in the shades
Some years ago, when the last Conservative government was limping towards defeat, someone published a book called 101 Uses for…
Dear Mary
Q. My neighbour is really lovely and always helps me chainsaw trees. He used to be the herdsman at the…
Escaping the Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…
Humanitarian
‘Our first priority,’ David Cameron said this week, ‘has of course been to deal with the acute humanitarian crisis in…
Escaping the Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival: the city is full of glassy-eyed narcissists eating haggis pizza off flyers that say Michael Gove:…
Putting Fletcher in the shades
Some years ago, when the last Conservative government was limping towards defeat, someone published a book called 101 Uses for…
Girl power
Mrs Oakley returned from her latest book club with an uplifting story. The Mother Superior of an Irish convent was…
High life
Porto Cheli Nothing is moving, not a twig nor a leaf, and I find myself missing the cows, the mountains…
Low life
I live in south Devon. Last week I went up to north Devon, to visit a friend who was renting…
Real life
The problem with not getting married, I am increasingly realising, is that you cannot get divorced. There is no mechanism…
Long life
It’s August in Tuscany, and the market towns are eerily quiet, presumably because most of their inhabitants are off on…
Bridge
Some bridge hands are so sad that they make you want to cry. At least, that’s how my friend Lou…
Olympiad
The Tromsø Olympiad finishes on Thursday 14 August, too late for any definitive conclusions to be drawn here as to…
no. 327
White to play. This is from Kasimdzhanov–Kramnik, Tromsø Olympiad 2014. How did White blast through? Answers to me at The…
Pet sounds
In Competition No. 2860 you were invited to submit a short ode on the death of a pet in unusual…
2175: Elated grunt
Across unclued lights combine with down ones to form anagrams of the titles (one of two words) of four works…
Solution to 2172: Para
Gerry Goffin, popular LYRICIST (40), died on 19 June 2014. He wrote the perimetric songs IT MIGHT AS WELL RAIN…
The high price of public service
I feel some sympathy for Mark Simmonds, the Conservative MP who’s resigned as a minister and is stepping down at…
Battle for Britain
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