Lap-dancing with ISIS, the real Monica Lewinsky and one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen: Edinburgh Fringe roundup
Clive Anderson’s show about Macbeth, ‘the greatest drama ever written’, offers us an hour of polished comedy loosely themed around…
Daffy charm and diabolo tricks: Bolshoi’s The Bright Stream reviewed
The Bright Stream is a ballet about a collective farm. Forget everything you know about collectivism — the failed harvests,…
I agree with Jeremy Deller – the birth of acid house was a revolution that changed Britain
Jeremy Deller’s Everybody in the Place: an Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992 (BBC4) began with some footage of kids queuing…
DiCaprio and Pitt are transfixing: Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood reviewed
Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, is a sprawling tale set in Hollywood in 1969, against…
Another birthday has got me down, but the alternative is being dead
If it hadn’t arrived I’d be dead, but it was hardly welcome: another birthday — 38 years old on 11…
A day spent in Oncology
A 20-minute drive through quiet country lanes then suddenly a madcap roundabout and teeming new ring road and finally the…
I’ve always enjoyed myself on Wayfair – but this time I’ve had enough
One thing Lorraine Kelly does not say in the Wayfair advert is: ‘What if I fancy getting my money back…
Why do race-goers have to subsidise the post-sport entertainment?
Before this year’s Shergar Cup meeting all I had seen of Australian flat jockey Mark Zahra was a memorably painful…
Zugger zugged
The German expression zugzwang means ‘compulsion to move’ and is most often seen in the endgame. Consider the following position…
no. 567
White to play. This position is from Alekhine-Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930. Can you spot the quiet move that puts black…
Spanish eyes
In Competition No. 3111 you were invited to submit William Topaz McGonagall’s poetic response to Magaluf. The Tayside Tragedian…
2421: Tina
‘40/37/1A’, as he has been called, was born in 28 (two words) and died in 30/36. He was a reluctant…
to 2418: Sweet
Unclued lights are all sweet wines. WESTERNISED, an anagram of DESSERT WINE, was to be highlighted.  First prize Erin Barrack,…
By taking on grouse-shooting, Labour is risking rural jobs
The Glorious Twelfth this year, signalling the start of the grouse-shooting season, was overshadowed by a Labour party press release…
Looking for a new idea? Try borrowing an old one
Recently I suggested a new approach to commuter-train overcrowding. It simply involved reformulating the problem by accepting that not all…
Dear Mary: How can I politely turn down friends’ sponsorship requests?
Q. I want my guests to feel welcome when they stay with us and certainly don’t want to nag them.…
Like Team Boris, I’m staying in London this summer
Foolish me. I could have been writing this by the shore of Lake Trasimene, with only one problem: how to…
What to call an inferior politician?
‘What about poetaster, then?’ asked my husband accusingly, looking up from his whisky and the Spectator, in which I’d ruminated…
Maxine Peake
We live in a time of paradoxes. The NSW Parliament has just legislated for terminations to be performed from 22…
Keneally sells out
It is not the easiest thing in the world to cause a stir among conservatives. They are often described as…
Business/Robbery etc
Having turned 80 last month and 12 years out of office, Australia’s 25th Prime Minister John Winston Howard’s occasional and…
The day the news died
Hollywood blockbusters are not normally the place one finds insight, but a new action thriller recently provided an unexpected reflection…
Nihilism nirvana
If you were to believe some politicians and journalists, the recent mass killings in El Paso, Texas and Christchurch, New…
We are only half-reconciled
Senator Pat Dodson, often called the ‘father of reconciliation’, said last week that political leaders had failed to reconcile with…
