How to save time
Imagine you are choosing between two proposed road-improvement plans, but have the budget for only one. Both of the roads…
Dear Mary
Q. Scrolling through my WhatsApp contacts, I have found a name I don’t recognise but when I click on the…
Burgundian beneficence
Paris has enough great restaurants to maintain its claim to be the world capital of gastronomy. That said, Parisian residents…
Push-bike
Books that one often used to see in secondhand bookshops, when there were such things, were the World’s Classics editions…
Bridge
The great Bob Hamman, in his heyday the best player in the world, was once asked what the biggest mistakes…
India’s rising stars
The former world champion Vishy Anand has described the current crop of young Indian talents as a golden generation. At…
Puzzle no. 770
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by C.G.S. Narayanan, K. Seetharaman, 2017. Answers should be emailed to…
Spectator competition winners: why you should never open a novel with the weather
In Competition No. 3317 you were invited to provide an opening to a novel that bears out Elmore Leonard’s tip…
2623: Half-day closing?
29 29-36’s 14 13 31 25 1D 2 24, in which 1 Down and 24 are each non-words that concatenate…
Solution to: 2620: The right name?
8A/31D, 23A/19D and 36D/7D are eponymous 29D/12A characters. 7D originally suggested D’Urberville, which needed to be changed to DURBEYFIELD, making…
Kendi gonna Kendi
Ibram X. Kendi has done as he promised. In 2020, freshly anointed as the director of Boston University’s new Center…
Cometh the hour, cometh the woman
A moment comes, which comes but rarely in a nation’s history, when a new star is born in the political…
The mystery of China’s missing ministers
Two down and who knows how many more to go. This week, Defence Minister Li Shangfu became the latest of…
Is Jeremy Hunt right that tax cuts are ‘virtually impossible’?
No one was expecting a big tax cut this year. Rishi Sunak’s government has been clear that 2023 is for…
Labour will regret handing more power to the OBR
The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) will have to sign off on any changes to taxation. It will need to…
Why the new right is like the old left
F.H. Bradley, perhaps the most self-aware philosopher who ever lived, once dismissed metaphysics as “the finding of bad reasons for…
Can Poland and Ukraine end their grain spat?
Poland has said it will no longer supply Ukraine with weapons, that it may cut aid to refugees and that…
Why dry Sauternes are the next big thing
It is my sense that the popularity of sweet wines like Sauternes, Port, Tokaji and all the German Auslese wines…
Falling wages aren’t stopping shoppers from hitting the high street
It looks like a case of recession postponed – again. Figures from the Office for National Statistics this morning show…
After Covid, it’s not surprising kids aren’t coming back to school
The Education Act of 1880 made it compulsory for all children in the UK to attend school between the ages…
Naught for crosses? Ticks are just as ambiguous
It is disappointing that the Federal Court ruled on Wednesday, September 20, that a tick on the Voice referendum ballot…
What happens after Rupert Murdoch?
Orderly, understated and out of a clear blue sky. From a comms point of view, Rupert Murdoch’s retirement bombshell was…
On the question of Aboriginal sovereignty
‘There’ll be plenty of people saying the next thing is a treaty. Now I think, of all of the absurdities…
The danger of politicians trying to demonetise Russell Brand
We must have the most unprincipled, illiberal crop of politicians ever to grace Westminster. Within hours of the House of…
