High life
New York Ha, ha! What London turned down, the Bagel accepted with alacrity, namely the poor little Greek boy. And…
Bridge
I sometimes get far too intense when I’m playing bridge online. Holed up in my study at home, wearing noise-cancelling…
Dear Mary
Q. Our neighbours have a tennis court which, under the property’s previous owner, we enjoyed playing men’s fours on. The…
ACAB
A favourite piece of graffiti to spray on the Cenotaph or the plinth of Churchill’s nearby statue is ACAB. It…
A strange and beautiful language
So wickets are out and outs are in for the new Hundred competition. But why? The language of sport is…
The good guys have lost
There was much rejoicing among Britain’s Islamists last week when the thinktank and campaigning organisation Quilliam announced that it was…
Back to the future
The west end of London is still pale and necrotic, but there are points of light. Hatchards the bookseller is…
Spring at last – but who’d want to own a giant shopping mall?
Retail footfall will be the first measure of recovery this spring. Everywhere I look, from central London to small-town Yorkshire,…
The turf
Sporting heroes in our modern world have an extra burden to carry. Within seconds of their triumph, with the adrenaline…
Real life
When the time came for the nurse to ring me to take my blood pressure, the phone simply didn’t ring.…
Low life
For EU nationals living in Britain and wanting to legally remain after Brexit, a letter or an email was enough…
European Online Club Cup
Since the start of the pandemic, opportunities for serious competition between players ranked outside the world’s top 20 have been…
to 2499: Entitled trio
The theme was C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 38A (of Scotland), 43A and 22D were all…
The dutiful Duke
The reason why Greeks and Romans would have found it difficult to eulogise the Duke of Edinburgh was that he…
The EU needs to stop playing politics with law
The Lugano convention – part of a tapestry of complicated international law agreements ensuring the courts of one country recognise…
A tale of two Afghanistan withdrawals
President Joe Biden announced this week that he was pulling all remaining American troops out of Afghanistan by September 11…
Sturgeon’s foreign policy power grab
There is certainly a lot to catch the eye in the SNP’s manifesto published on Thursday. If you look you…
The Northern Ireland Protocol is untenable
The process that delivered us the Northern Ireland Protocol already seems to have been rewritten in official memory. It suits…
What happened when the trans mob came for Robert Webb?
Robert Webb is best known for making people laugh, but he conducted himself with poise and grace when he was…
Biden’s UN flambassador
The US federal government may very well be the most complex human undertaking in existence, an immortal leviathan with millions…
Sailors and half-clad women? No! Whoever would have thought of it?
To twerk or not to twerk? That is the question. I wonder what the Bard would think? Australia has its…
