Brains and beauty
There’s a kind of writing about LA that I am a sucker for. Gossipy, lyrical, with a surface of affectless…
Political pandering won’t prevent Covid deaths
When the media have gone large on the conclusions of an overpoweringly tedious report, one of the biggest favours a…
Portrait of the week
Home Pubs in England would be allowed to reopen for table service from 4 July, Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister,…
Homage to Avalonia
Televising Glastonbury has changed the festival, and in turn transformed television, says Graeme Thomson
Age of stuckism
I’m in Mayfair and I’m boarding an airplane. Or rather, I’m boarding an approximation of an airplane. In the centre…
Britain emerges, blinking
The Prime Minister’s announcement that pubs, restaurants and many other facilities will be able to re-open on 4 July amounts…
Football without fans
Football is back — but the fans aren’t. Covid means that clubs have to play their games behind closed doors.…
Nearly nul points
This comedy stars Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as an Icelandic duo whose biggest dream is to represent their country…
Eroticism and ecstasy
Wayne McGregor’s Morgen! and Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits are the first pieces of live dance — streamed…
Chekhov by Zoom
The Beeb has released Simon Godwin’s Hamlet staged by the RSC in 2016. The director makes one major change and…
Bob Dylan: Rough and Rowdy Ways
Grade: A ‘Rough’ in terms of the mostly spoken vocals, but only ‘rowdy’ if you’re approaching your 80th birthday, which…
Pure poison
The big mistake people make with Alan Bennett is to conflate him with his fellow Yorkshireman David Hockney. But whereas…
Real life
‘Have you met the man who keeps his horses in this field?’ said one silver-haired lady to the other, as…
The turf
Royal Ascot it wasn’t: for the first time in her 68-year reign, thanks to Covid-19, the Queen was not there.…
Bridge
I’m not a great fan of online bridge but I must admit, lockdown has provided a real opportunity for players…
Dear Mary
Q. How can one politely stop predatory kissers? I am (or was) an affectionate and demonstrative person but I don’t…
Diary
‘Pray for us St Sebastian that we may deserve to pass through this pestilence,’ reads the inscription on a 15th-century…
Here comes the summer
In Competition No. 3154 you were invited to supply your own variations on the medieval round ‘Sumer is icumen in’.…
Solution to 2460: Sleaze
The word is TACK. In the order of the headwords in Chambers, except for the fifth, their meanings are indicated…
