Life
Spectator Competition: Acrostic
For Competition 3451 you were invited to supply an acrostic poem praising or dispraising a public figure in which the…
Reading Jeremy’s words only gets harder
Provence In the hope of renting out the main cave house during the summer, I’ve been clearing to make room…
I’ll be praying for Arsenal’s God squad
Looking forward to the World Cup? I do hope so. You can complain and say that a gargantuan tournament without…
Aussie life
Visitors have a licence to offend, and some visitors offend more than others, and it was reasonable to assume that…
Language
Speccie reader Tim writes: ‘I’m interested to know when (and why) “partner” took on its new meanings. Years ago, I…
Our local nudists are running wild
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna It was midnight, more or less, and my middle daughter, Magdalena, 18, said with all the untroubled…
‘It’s all small plates because the girls are the main course’: Rhino at The Windmill reviewed
You don’t go to a strip club expecting to put something in your mouth unless you’re an incorrigible roué. So…
We’ve lost our only anti-vaxxer friend in the village
‘Can I go now?’ said the farmer I was talking to over my gate, and he looked so scared I…
2750: Lincoln Memorial – solution
Solvers had to highlight the BINARY (101010111110) and HEXADECIMAL (ABE) forms of the PUZZLE NUMBER (2750), thereby both filling in…
AI Armageddon has replaced climate change hysteria
How worried should we be about AI? Absolutely petrified, according to a new documentary called Chasing Utopia. Billed as the…
A foolproof way to pick a leader
Our esteemed editor was once excoriated for saying that the public had had enough of experts. ‘The people of this…
Is it ‘common’ to look at a restaurant bill before paying?
Q. My sister has married in later life and we all like her husband. They have moved nearby and now…
2753: Rapid sea
The 23D 41A, stirred up by 3D and 6A 26D the mother of 29A. Unclued lights identify the protagonist and…
Spectator Competition: One way
For Competition 3450 you were invited to submit a short story written in words of one syllable. This challenge produced…
Clash of Generations
At the start of May, 14-year-old Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus became the youngest player in history to cross the symbolic 2700…
Aussie life
There are statistics and damn statistics, and the truth may lie somewhere between the two. The Economist recently touted that…
Language
When Donald Trump says he is ready for military action he often says he (or, rather the US military) is…
The joy of iced buns
‘It’s just a hot dog bun with icing!’ the iced-bun detractors will shriek. I’m a lady with a lot of…
The secret to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s racehorse success
You meet an eclectic bunch of people in the horse-racing business. Yet it was at prep school 55 years ago…
