Real life

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Everything is well and truly burned to a crisp, and we are piling through hundreds of pounds of hay a…

Low life

6 August 2022 9:00 am

I’m staying for a week in an 1850s house in the Surrey hills that looks-wise might have been built for…

The problem with Liz Truss’s ‘momentum’

6 August 2022 9:00 am

‘Truss’s campaign to be Britain’s next prime minister,’ wrote one political commentator this week, ‘seems to have unstoppable momentum. She…

Good riddance to the Tavistock

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Most push notifications that pop up on my tablet concern impending catastrophe. But last week, one newsflash made my day.…

The turf

6 August 2022 9:00 am

‘You’re being unfaithful,’ says the punter’s wife brandishing a note found in her husband’s suit pocket: ‘Dorothea 07440 521321.’ ‘No,…

Can Truss be trusted?

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Liz Truss has taken the lead in the Tory leadership race with an agenda that seems radical and ambitious, whereas…

When did we give up on the truth?

6 August 2022 9:00 am

During that rather strange summer of 2020 I used the phrase ‘the gentle armed robber George Floyd’ in several articles…

Wine-poached peaches

6 August 2022 9:00 am

I’ve never been very good at leaving things be. I tend to gild the lily. I may plan to do…

Puzzle No. 714

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Black to play. Smirnov – Duda, Chennai Olympiad 2022. With his next move, Duda forced a decisive gain of material.…

Solution to 2564: Sea monster

6 August 2022 9:00 am

The unclued lights 11 SOLITARY, 8 POOR, 38 NASTY, 36 BRUTISH and 35 SHORT are descriptions of 1 THE LIFE…

High life

6 August 2022 9:00 am

 Patmos Judging by the news, the world is finally coming apart: Chinese lab escapee Covid is still going strong, monkeypox…

2567: Stop!

6 August 2022 9:00 am

The unclued lights (including two pairs, one of which is three words, and one single light of three words) are…

All the world’s a stage

6 August 2022 9:00 am

A neglected little town in Merseyside is the natural home for Shakespeare North, says Robert Gore-Langton

Hidden agenda

6 August 2022 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3260, a challenge suggested by a reader, you were invited to reveal the existence of a hitherto…

Mob mentality

6 August 2022 9:00 am

It’s hard to imagine in the wake of GoodFellas, The Sopranos and Gomorrah but there was a time, not so…

How to be PM

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Ten rules for the next Tory leader to live by

A backward step

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Sick though one may be of the way that the poison dart of ‘woke’ is lazily flung at what is…

Striking a false note

6 August 2022 9:00 am

The blurb accompanying the Radio 3 series World of Classical, inviting us to ‘join the dots between classical music traditions…

Why Centrica is right to restore its dividend

6 August 2022 9:00 am

‘What’s worse, they’re paying the profits to shareholders,’ said a grey-haired woman ahead of me in the Co-op queue. ‘Bloody…

Queen B

6 August 2022 9:00 am

You feel a little sorry for Renaissance, the first solo album by Beyoncé in more than six years. It just…

Hitting the high seas

6 August 2022 9:00 am

The Barbican’s big summer show is billed on the website as ‘the sold-out musical sensation, Anything Goes’. The term ‘sold-out’…

Beard oil

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Every few months I take out a box of essential oils and carefully lay them out on my kitchen table,…

Bridge

6 August 2022 9:00 am

In the modern game, being green versus red (non-vul v. vul) is a licence to bid on tram tickets: passing…

A lucky escape

6 August 2022 9:00 am

I chatted to a spectator after one of my games at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy in Dortmund. ‘A close shave…

The problem of consciousness

6 August 2022 9:00 am

Given the ingenuity of machine-makers, said Descartes in the 17th century, machines might well be constructed that exactly resemble humans.…