Enchanting – but don’t fall for the mummified rubber duck in the gift shop: Tutankhamun reviewed
Like Elton John, though less ravaged, Tutankhamun’s treasures are on their final world tour. Soon these 150 artefacts will return…
People expecting punishment won’t be disappointed: Almeida’s Duchess of Malfi reviewed
The Duchess of Malfi is one of those classics that everyone knows by name but not many have witnessed on…
One of those films that never seems to end: A Hidden Life reviewed
Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life is a historical drama based on the true story of Franz Jäggerstätter, an Austrian who…
Two books that made me forget everything else
Gstaad I’ve been hitting the books rather hard lately, the ritzy-glitzy crowd having gone the way of natural snow. There’s…
War has broken out between me and my siblings
Last night I watched a boxed set. Parade’s End is a small box set as box sets go, and quite…
How to catch a thief
My tech guy Andy appeared on the doorstep in a puff of smoke. I had just texted him to ask…
My narrow escape from a burning aircraft
Addis Ababa airport This morning I caught a connecting flight via Addis Ababa’s Bole airport. For me this place…
Bridge
2019 was a big year for Alex Hydes. HUGE in fact. He won, almost consecutively, three major international titles and…
12 rules for chess
As backhanded Christmas gifts go, a copy of 12 Rules for Life, must be up there with wrinkle cream or a…
no. 587
Sanguineti–Najdorf, Mar del Plata 1956. White to move. White played 1 Kd8?, to threaten 2 Qe7#. Black resigned, overlooking 1…Rxg4…
You must remember this
In Competition No. 3131 you were invited to submit a poem beginning ‘Yes. I remember…’ This challenge was suggested by…
2440: Dizzy tiny blonde
The unclued lights (as four pairs and a singleton which includes an abbreviation and apostrophe) are of a kind. 36…
Magical mystery tour
The Journey of the Magi (38A and 39A), by T.S. Eliot, was based on an earlier sermon by Lancelot Andrewes,…
The delusion of the born-again Brexiteers
As 31 January looms, I’ve been thinking about how to bring the country back together again after we’ve left the…
Sport needs more men like Vincent Kompany
Anyone still vaguely tempted to subscribe to that lazy and stupid cliché about footballers just being overpaid idiots should have…
Dear Mary: How can I stop other diners eating my chips?
Q. My husband and I are committed Brexiteers. For many years we have regularly enjoyed friendly bridge evenings with a…
Fairy food for fairy wives: Julie’s Restaurant reviewed
Julie’s is a 50-year-old restaurant in Holland Park, London, newly emerged from three years of closure as plushly renovated as…
Pansexuality has been around longer than you think
When an MP announced she was pansexual I didn’t know what she meant. Indeed I didn’t know what she could…
Sacha Baron Cohen’s brilliant new comic device
Sacha Baron Cohen’s recent anti-defamation league speech was quite a performance, even by his standards. In shrill, bordering on hysterical…
Gastrointestinal disease, climate change and a republic
Whenever something adverse happens these days, the event will more likely than not be attributed to, or associated with, the…
Simon Collins
‘Dr Martin Luther King didn’t say “I have a nightmare,”’ is the opening line of a letter the IPA recently…
Heritage Cai Guo-Qiang, China b.1957
We talk about it a lot. One of life’s most essential elements it is now being celebrated in an exhibition:…
Something smells fishy at JCU
Do you remember the shocking scientific study about how baby fish in our polluted oceans now actually prefer eating plastic…
Countering disasters
The near hysterical insistence by green groups that Australia’s undoubtedly very bad bushfire season is the result of man-made climate…
