Life
I’ve turned 60 – but all is not lost
By the time you read this I’ll be 60, having passed that milestone on Tuesday. My older friends tell me…
Aussie life
The plight of indigenous people is a scab on our nation which worsens with the picking. No one, not even…
Language
Noel Pearson and others have insisted the Voice referendum ‘is not about race’. Does that make sense linguistically? The word…
Revised Criterion
There are cursed restaurants and cursed women, and this makes them no less interesting. One is Maxim’s in Paris, which…
Corned beef pie
A few weeks ago I was at the super-market juggling a toddler, several heavy bags and, it transpired, no pound…
Bend it like Biles
Has there ever been an athlete, male or female, quite like Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time? She…
For deer life
In spite of my dodgy right hand – caused by an injury to my radial nerve – I decided to…
Pleasure principle
In Competition No. 3320 you were invited to submit a poem extolling Epicureanism over Stoicism or the other way round.…
Aussie life
The death of actor David McCallum last week prompted me to google the theme music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,…
Language
A reader has asked me about the common expression ‘virtue-signalling’. The meaning, I think, is fairly clear. It is a…
Solution to 2622: Local call
The unclued lights are PUB NAMES which include the pair 38/31 First prize Mary Newbery, Devizes, Wiltshire Runners-up David Burnside,…
2625: Playtime
The unclued lights (one of two words) and four others clued without their thematic definition are of a kind. Across…
