A cat for Kit
Jeoffry is, by now, one of the best-known cats in literary history. And unlike the Cheshire Cat, Mr Mistoffelees, Orlando,…
Things go flying
There are fashions in the paranormal as in everything else. Since the famous Enfield hauntings of the late 1970s, poltergeists…
The boys are back in town
There’s a delicious scene in the new season of Amazon’s superheroes-gone-bad series The Boys. The chief superhero Homelander (Antony Starr)…
Science and religion intertwine
We can probably blame George and Ira Gershwin. It was that brilliant duo who, in 1937, penned the memorable lyric…
Sex and corpses
A great temple of the goddess Tara can be found at Tarapith in West Bengal. But her true abode, in…
Zinger ping pong
Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 — don’t worry, you haven’t missed six earlier films — is a…
All together now
It’s the breath I miss most. The moment when a shuffling group of men and women in scruffy concert blacks…
Solution to 2474: Love Me Do
In George Orwell’s 1984 WINSTON SMITH (31/3) worked for the MINISTRY of TRUTH (43/21). The MINISTRY of LOVE (43/34) got…
Real live chess
It is nigh on seven months since I sat opposite a flesh and blood opponent, so I expected to feel…
The art of saying no
In Competition No. 3168 you were invited to compose a response on the part of a well-known writer to an…
Puzzle no. 624
White to play. A variation from L’Ami–Caruana, Bundesliga 2020. Caruana avoided this position, where White can force a quick mate.…
2477: Rendezvous
The unclued entries, all across, are unconnected words from Chambers. Each requires a letter added to render them thematic, and…
High life
Gstaad It is not exactly a stop all the clocks occasion, let alone cut off the telephone, but I’ve finally…
Low life
Feeling oddly confident, clairvoyant even, I entered a bar to place a bet on Sunday’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.…
Real life
The pile of fly-tipping was dumped in the night as usual, right against the five bar gate. I arrived to…
The turf
Wetumpka Racing? When your yard is running at a handsome strike rate of 40 per cent wins to runs you…
Bridge
The Alt Invitational is a prestigious online teams tournament held every fortnight or so, packed with world-class players. It’s not…
The memo Dominic Cummings never sent
There’s something about Dominic Cummings I will always like, and perhaps partly it’s the danger. I hardly know him well…
In defence of wokeness
We have been reading an awful lot about ‘wokeness’ recently. Nobody, I notice, seems to be much in favour of…
