Only right and natural
MPs are not exactly attracting plaudits for their recent attempts at governing. Perhaps Cicero’s three-book work On Duties (De Officiis)…
Ever-increasing circles
Those for whom Dave Eggers’s name evokes only his much praised memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) may…
The telling moment
A Tatler photographer once told me that the secret to taking a good photo was the three Ts: tum, tits,…
Health, wealth and happiness
Stories about money are never about money. They are about pain, about family, about atrocity, about luck, about health, about…
Feat of endurance
Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto — part instructional guide for artists, part call to arms for equality, part literary memoir —shimmers with…
Barometer
Horror shows Eight people were killed when fans of rapper Travis Scott rushed the stage at a concert in Houston,…
2532: Patchy?
The unclued lights (one of two words) can be arranged into two associated groups. Across 1 Company accepts blame having…
‘Having the right answer is boring’
Graeme Thomson talks to the cult singer Joan Wasser about the robotic nature of pop, finding salvation in songwriting and Tony Allen
Puzzle No. 679
White to play. Trisha Kanyamarala–Roderick Mckay, EJCOA Forest Hall Invitational, 2021. White found a brilliant strike on the kingside, forcing…
The fruits of their labour
Important historic gardens fall into two main categories: those made by one person, whose vision has been carefully preserved down…
The good, the bad and the cocky
Clint Eastwood is 91; Cry Macho may well be his last film. Or maybe not. He has, after all, been…
Marrying words and melodies
Whatever your favourite theory of creativity, Paul McCartney has a cheery thumbs-up to offer. You think the secret is putting…
Bridge
It can’t have been a surprise to anyone who knows him that when Andrew Black — Bertie to his friends…
How’s your father?
I was turned on to Midnight Mass by Ricky Gervais who raved about it in one of his social media…
Low life
For early humans there was no distinction between spirit and matter. There was no idea of self; no barrier between…
Screwball Austen
Let’s be honest. Jane Austen is popular because War and Peace doesn’t fit inside a handbag. Austen’s best-loved novel, Pride…
Tourist misinformation
In Competition No. 3224, you were invited to submit snippets of misleading advice either for tourists visiting Britain or for…
A tantalising mystery
‘Victorian’ stuck, and ‘Edwardian’ too. But ‘Georgian’, as an adjective associated with the next monarch in line, never caught on.…
The turf
There are Flat people and there are jumping people. People like the late Captain Tim Forster, trainer of three Grand…
Why parliament is in such bad order
I see that the most boring conversation in the nation is back. The one even worse than people in the…
