Bridge
There are many drawbacks to playing bridge online but there is one thing that’s quite enjoyable: the speed and accuracy…
A daughter’s duty
There comes a time after the death of parents when grief subsides, the sense of loss eases, and you, the…
Rage on the page
As a budding political apparatchik, my first job out of university was as a junior parliamentary assistant to Alan Duncan…
Encircling gloom
When the unnamed narrator of Sarah Bernstein’s The Coming Bad Days leaves the man with whom she has been living…
Apostle of modernism
Clive Bell is the perennial supporting character in the biographies of the Bloomsbury group. The husband of Vanessa Bell, brother-in-law…
Plunder from the palace
A book about the looted African art known as the Benin Bronzes begins by clarifying that most of them are…
The great unveiling
The way an object is stored can magnify its beauty and enhance expectation. Joanna Rossiter wonders whether the opening up of galleries will have the same effect on an art-starved public
How to get a police record
I couldn’t quite believe it when first I read the newspaper subscriber’s letter. Columnists for the Times and Spectator do…
The perils of lockdown drama
Hats off to the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. They’ve discovered a new form of racism. Some people say we…
Let me out
Has it ever been more difficult to plan a family holiday? At the time of writing, it is illegal to…
Portrait of the week
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, announced the hunt was on for two effective pills to treat Covid, to be…
Diary
I have just had my second jab and it poses a dilemma. As an assiduous Covid rule-taker, I have been…
In the gift
Ex-prime minister David Cameron, ignoring official protocol, though not acting illegally, went directly to the chancellor Rishi Sunak to ask…
Wolves in sheep’s clothing
The #MeToo movement isn’t all it seems. More than three years after countless sexual abuse allegations shook the world, the…
Filthy lucre
If you’re after an exciting, twisty programme about police corruption that doesn’t also feel a bit like sitting an exam…
Dumber and dumber
Truly we are living in the golden age of the grifter. From Fyre Fest to the WeWork empire to Theranos…
Down the rabbit hole
Black Bear is one of those indie dramas that is meta on so many levels you can either sit with…
Nowt so great as folk
Has any musical moment extended its tendrils in so many unexpected directions as the English folk revival of the mid-1960s?…
Low Life
The other week I turned up for the village walking club’s Monday hike. A dawn meet. Two cars. A 90-minute…
The Polgar Challenge
Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa, at 15 years old one of India’s most exceptional young players, emerged as the winner of the Polgar…
Puzzle no. 650
Black to play. Praggnanandhaa–Salimova, April 2021. White’s last move, Bg2-f3, was a blunder. Which move should Black play to exploit…
