The only gay in the village
In Jon Ransom’s debut novel, water seeps into the crevices between waking and dreaming, flooding the narrator Joe’s consciousness. Set…
How Kyrgios saved Wimbledon
What separates this year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal from every other year’s ‘empty seats on centre court’ scandal?…
A call to farms
Farming threaded its way through the fields, mud, hedgerows and lifeblood of the people who made up Sarah Langford’s childhood.…
Real life
As he grouted the last tile, five years after the bathroom was finished, I knew the game was up. ‘I…
Portrait of the week
Home The Conservatives began the process of finding a new leader, which involves balloting MPs and then sending two names…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. I have found parties frustrating this month because they have been too crowded. Is there a polite way to…
Parents must resist Stonewall’s gospel
I think by now it’s becoming horribly apparent to parents of every political persuasion that we can’t sit out the…
Civilisation in a sausage
When the Tory party set itself on fire last week a restaurateur told me: ‘Don’t worry, Tanya, we’ll still be…
Our
There was a word I didn’t understand in Boris Johnson’s resignation speech (in which he did not resign). He spoke…
2564: Sea monster
Five unclued lights are descriptions of another (four words), from another, by another (two words). Elsewhere, ignore one accent. …
Of man and misery
Do not be deterred, but do be warned. Rogues isn’t a book book: it’s a kind of high-end sizzle reel,…
Diary
‘So what did he say?’ I asked the ministerial friend who went to tell Boris last week he had to…
Puzzle no. 711
White to play. Short-Timman, Staunton Memorial 2008. Short played 1 Qb3, missing an unusual opportunity to cause havoc with the…
Solution to 2561: Ports
The unclued entry RECYCLING thematically links six unclued cyclic non-word permutations that appear in the systematic order GCYCLIN, NGCYCLI, INGCYCL,…
Uncovering the female past
Isn’t it irritating when your ancestral manuscript collection gets in the way of your ping-pong tournament? That was Colonel Butler-Bowden’s…
Filmericks
In Competition No. 3257, you were invited to summarise a film in limerick form. A nod to Ezra Haber Glenn,…
Has identity politics had its day?
Have we reached peak woke? In Hollywood, that seems to be the emerging consensus. Thanks to the box office success…
Silver and gold
The ‘English chess explosion’ that began in the 1970s produced a bumper crop of grandmasters, which meant that by the…
Grim prospects ahead
We live in discombobulating times, economically speaking. We know we’re descending into the highest inflation for half a century and…
The outlaw river
It may not be the grandest of the world’s waterways – the Nile and Amazon are ten times its length…
Territorial battles
The word ‘colony’ meets with a sharp intake of breath these days, but ‘province’ raises no eyebrows. How very odd.…
Siege mentality
Take the Red Line north, heading out of St Petersburg, and you’ll eventually reach Courage Square on the city’s outskirts…
