Life
Twelve to Follow
Women truly are different. Recovering in a spare bedroom from the wonders of a hip replacement (don’t ever jump on…
Retrofitted arguments
Some people are gay. Get over it’ — this was the slogan for a campaign against homophobia. A series of YouTube…
High life
Everyone’s doing it, so I might as well jump in too. After all, I knew so many of the people…
Low life
Theresa May must have been a little disappointed. Her government limousine rolled silently to a halt at the rear entrance…
Real life
‘Do you know…?’ said the Tory MP I was sitting next to, as he tried to introduce me to the…
Long life
The police have been complaining a lot lately about frivolous calls to the emergency services. All over the country people…
Wild life
As I write this, my hands are seared and bruised from holding a hot iron after branding our cattle. We…
Bridge
My plan this week was to write wittily, but modestly, about our rise from the bowels of relegation after the…
Sanjuro
In Kurosawa’s samurai warrior classic Sanjuro, the hero, a wandering Ronin played by Toshiro Mifune, ends the film in a…
No. 292
White to play. This position is from Anand-Ding Liren, Alekhine Memorial, Paris 2013. White’s next destroyed the already compromised black…
Pet project
In Competition 2823 you were invited to submit a school essay or poem written at the age of eight by…
2139: Separated
Nine unclued lights can be separated into three groups; each group consists of three definitions of one of three words…
To 2136: Howdunit
Six of the unclued entries contained the Cluedo character surnames; the remaining unclued entries were therefore a murder weapon and…
Hunt saboteurs
I love The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards. On the face of it, they’re a great advertisement for just…
Dave
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All change at the top
In sport, as in life, you just don’t know where you stand any more. Look at the Premier League: no…
Dear Mary
Q. Walking at a local beauty spot the other day, I passed a handsome young man. We exchanged a few…
French revival
Boulestin is a pretty restaurant on St James’s Street, between the posh fag shop (Davidoff) and the old palace, which…
Believe
‘Believe in Magic & Sparkle,’ says the Marks & Spencer television Christmas advertisement. The phrase is meant to suggest the…
French revival
Boulestin is a pretty restaurant on St James’s Street, between the posh fag shop (Davidoff) and the old palace, which…
All change at the top
In sport, as in life, you just don’t know where you stand any more. Look at the Premier League: no…
Wild life
As I write this, my hands are seared and bruised from holding a hot iron after branding our cattle. We…
High life
I suppose the secret of death is to choose not to expire the same day as famous people. I read…
Low life
In the Spar shop I overheard someone talking anxiously to the woman on the till about an approaching ‘hurricane’. I…



























