Things that go bump
Pregnancy has always been a public spectacle – and as the Foundling Museum’s new exhibition shows, a dangerous one
Curdled foreskin
The Lighthouse stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson (and a very nasty seagull) in a gothic thriller set off the…
From hell to heaven
One of the many astonishing things about the BBC2 drama The Windermere Children (Monday) was that the real-life story it…
Doing Chekhov by halves
Uncle Vanya opens with a puzzle. Is the action set in the early 20th century or right now? The furnishings…
Purified scarification
Every development in heavy music is derided by mainstream critics. When Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin emerged in the late…
Top bantz
So, you’ve fallen in love with a piece of classical music and you want to buy a recording. The problems…
Winging it
‘Plunderers of the air’, Naum Gabo called the Luftwaffe planes. In Cornwall, during the second world war, Gabo kept cuttings…
High life
I was walking up St James’s and happy to be in London. For a change I was not rushing but…
Low life
There are no stairs or escalators to take you up to Terminal 4 from the underground Heathrow Express platform. Beyond…
Real life
Some might say it was a typical over-reaction on my part to erect hidden cameras at the horses’ field. First…
Bridge
Have I mentioned that I played for England in the Camrose? And not for the first time either. Sadly this…
Women’s World Championship
Looking at the first 12 games of the 2018 Carlsen-Caruana World Championship, which all ended in draws, I saw a statistical…
no. 589
Black to move. Javakhishvili–Adams, Gibraltar 2020. Adams has a few plausible moves here, including Rf1, Rf3+ and Rxf7, but only…
Food glorious food
In Competition No. 3133 you were invited to provide a passage about food written in the style of a well-known…
2442: Don’t nod
Eight unclued lights are of a kind with the 3 of the 30. Elsewhere, ignore two accents. Across 1 …
to 2439: More nuts
The statement, ‘HINDSIGHT IS ALWAYS (10/17) twenty-twenty’ was made by the FILM DIRECTOR (48/21) BILLY (4) Wilder (suggested by the…
The climate doomsayers always get it wrong
I was slightly surprised when Greta Thunberg announced at Davos that we had eight years left to save the planet.…
Can England rise to the Six Nations challenge?
Not everyone likes the Six Nations — a recent well-received book on the state of rugby union described it as…
Dear Mary
Q. An elderly cousin gave my husband and me a wedding present of two weeks in his villa in the…
A taste of Wild Honey
Wild Honey is a ludicrous name for this restaurant: there is nothing wild about it, and I do not think…
Step back
At this time of year in Colorado the crime of puffing is widespread. It is so cold that in the…
Simon Collins
If you stay single long enough most of your married friends will stop trying to match-make you and take up…
