Doyenne of applied arts
Great Swiss artists, like famous Belgians, might seem to be an amusingly underpopulated category. Actually, as with celebrated Flemings and…
Why I love Basic Instinct
Our occasional series on cinema’s most underrated films arrives at what many have considered the peak of misogynistic trash. We’re…
Johnson’s problems are piling up
This time last year, Boris Johnson and his team were making plans to ‘move on’ from the pandemic. He had…
A fat king with a sex chair
When it comes to history programming, television’s loss is increasingly audio’s gain. People moan to me most weeks over the…
Puzzle No. 668
Black to play. Geller–Sveshnikov, USSR Ch 1978. Geller’s last move, 34 Rb1-e1 looked clever, since Black cannot safely capture the…
The human condition
Opera buffs enjoy their jargon. We all do it, scattering words like ‘spinto’ and ‘Fach’ like an enthusiastic pizza waiter…
Art nouveau
In Competition No. 3213 you were invited to submit a villanelle whose first line is: ‘The art of [insert gerund…
2521: Leading question
Unclued lights can be arranged so that, preceded by ‘What is’, they form a question whose answer solvers must shade.…
Leahy’s love bomb livens up the bid battle for Morrisons
The Hundred — some sort of pimped-up cricket tournament, I gather — passed me by entirely, but I’ve been admiring…
Happy cross-pollination
This year we must love Edinburgh for her soul rather than her looks. The EIF should be commended for making…
Letters
The blame game Sir: Like many who served in Afghanistan, I have watched with growing dismay the recent events unfolding…
The protest test
The concept of normality has been so disrupted over the past 18 months that the Extinction Rebellion protests — usually…
It’s fun up north
Given how difficult it is to arrange an overseas holiday, I thought I’d take Charlie and Freddie, my two youngest,…
What a farce
Lloyd Evans talks to Nigel Planer about the death of comedy theatre — and how he’s trying to revive it
Remembering Evgeny Sveshnikov
There be dragons! What we now call the Sveshnikov variation of the Sicilian defence was, in the 1970s, largely uncharted…
Eels
The migration of European eels is one of the miracles of nature. They start life in the great deeps of…
Diary
I’ve been to two of my favourite book festivals recently, Chalke Valley History Festival and Charleston, and the experience has…
Dear Mary: Your problems solved
Q. What is the best seating plan when you have a supper party where you are hoping to matchmake two…
In turbulent times, sherry
I sometimes wander through Trafalgar Square in the small hours when the traffic has abated and children are no longer…
Ownership
Language is used in a weird way in the victimhood war, where those who see themselves without agency bravely speak…
