Life
The resurrection man
‘I’m going for Al Ferof,’ said a suit in front of me in the Totepool queue at Ascot on Saturday…
High life
To the grand Herrera house on the upper east side of Manhattan for lunch in honour of Lord and Lady…
Low life
An hour earlier I had stepped off a plane from Dublin and I was three-quarters deaf in one ear. I…
Real life
Before I go any further, I would like to make clear that no animals were harmed in the making of…
Long life
I thought that this week I might write about memory loss, but couldn’t remember if I’d written about it last…
Wild life
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…
I’m a celebrity, get me in there
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.
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…
Dear Mary
Q. Success has come to me in later life with an unfortunate side effect. Since my career has taken off,…
The real French embassy
Semper eadem. There is some basement in a Mayfair street that is forever France. It is not far from the…
Reem
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.…
High life
Aleko Goulandris is my oldest and closest friend. We met in the summer of 1945, at the Semiramis hotel in…
Low life
Another writer I once liked very much is Gerald Brenan. Brenan served with distinction in the first world war and…
Real life
People don’t listen. It’s a relatively new thing. People used to listen, to varying degrees. You had your good listeners…
Long life
Last Sunday night 8,000 illuminated balloons, tethered along eight miles of Berlin’s former inner-city border between East and West Germany,…
