From Russia with love
The enduring appeal of The Nutcracker. Tchaikovsky’s ravishing score is nothing less than the sound of Christmas
Tuber fever
Truffles smell of sex. Even if we can’t quite say what we mean by ‘smell’ or ‘sex’ in this sentence,…
Some (tentative) reasons to be cheerful
Someone sent me a job advert recently for a Junior Research Fellowship at Queen’s College, Oxford. It states: ‘The Queen’s…
Seriously deluded
A friend who works in social care speaks to me earnestly about a troubled young colleague: ‘Of course, she’s got…
Vignettes to treasure
Jan Morris, in all her incarnations, was always able to evoke a place and a moment like no other. As…
Mother’s ruin
The Lost Daughter is an adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel about motherhood that says, quite ferociously: it’s complicated. And:…
Solution to 2534: Off pitch
The unclued lights are cricket fielding positions. The clues contain the names of 12 present and former England cricketers: Old,…
The potency of cheap music
Christmas: the most vulnerable time of the year. I heard ‘A Winter’s Tale’ by David Essex on the radio the…
Born again
In Competition No. 3229, you were invited to provide the story of the Nativity retold in the style of a…
Ed Sheeran: = (Christmas edition)
Grade: C= My wife’s ill with Covid and demanding inexhaustible libations and difficult meals, which she will leave uneaten. The…
Puzzle no. 683
White to play and mate in 3. Composed by Albert Barbe, 1861. Only the first move is required, but it’s…
Wain’s world
Before Tom Kitten, before Felix the Cat, before Thomas ‘Tom’ Cat, Sylvester James Pussycat Sr, Top Cat and Fat Freddy’s…
Hark, the heretical angels sing
A few years back, a hackneyed journalistic come-hither led me to a sober reckoning: would I write about someone alive…
Actress’s notebook
After being landlocked for the past 18 months, it was a particular thrill to set off to film in three…
Spot the book title 2021
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Smoke and mirrors
On 2 October last year, when he became chief of the UK Secret Intelligence Service (MI6, if you prefer), Richard…
Gastro-nomics: a foodie’s guide to a changing world
Twice recently I’ve been asked my opinion of ‘Doughnut Economics’. The first time, I was tempted to cover my ignorance…
Rethinking Penelope
Problems about the misuse of history, especially on subjects such as race and colonialism, have been running for a long…
