Real life
Everything is well and truly burned to a crisp, and we are piling through hundreds of pounds of hay a…
Low life
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’
‘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
Most push notifications that pop up on my tablet concern impending catastrophe. But last week, one newsflash made my day.…
The turf
‘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?
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?
During that rather strange summer of 2020 I used the phrase ‘the gentle armed robber George Floyd’ in several articles…
Wine-poached peaches
I’ve never been very good at leaving things be. I tend to gild the lily. I may plan to do…
Puzzle No. 714
Black to play. Smirnov – Duda, Chennai Olympiad 2022. With his next move, Duda forced a decisive gain of material.…
Solution to 2564: Sea monster
The unclued lights 11 SOLITARY, 8 POOR, 38 NASTY, 36 BRUTISH and 35 SHORT are descriptions of 1 THE LIFE…
High life
Patmos Judging by the news, the world is finally coming apart: Chinese lab escapee Covid is still going strong, monkeypox…
2567: Stop!
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
A neglected little town in Merseyside is the natural home for Shakespeare North, says Robert Gore-Langton
Hidden agenda
In Competition No. 3260, a challenge suggested by a reader, you were invited to reveal the existence of a hitherto…
Mob mentality
It’s hard to imagine in the wake of GoodFellas, The Sopranos and Gomorrah but there was a time, not so…
A backward step
Sick though one may be of the way that the poison dart of ‘woke’ is lazily flung at what is…
Striking a false note
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
‘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
You feel a little sorry for Renaissance, the first solo album by Beyoncé in more than six years. It just…
Hitting the high seas
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
Every few months I take out a box of essential oils and carefully lay them out on my kitchen table,…
Bridge
In the modern game, being green versus red (non-vul v. vul) is a licence to bid on tram tickets: passing…
A lucky escape
I chatted to a spectator after one of my games at the Sparkassen Chess Trophy in Dortmund. ‘A close shave…
The problem of consciousness
Given the ingenuity of machine-makers, said Descartes in the 17th century, machines might well be constructed that exactly resemble humans.…
