Silly but stellar: Bolshoi Ballet’s Spartacus reviewed
It’s togas-a-go-go as the Bolshoi bring Yuri Grigorovich’s 1956 ballet Spartacus to the Royal Opera House. Oh dear, I did…
Two sides to every story
Maybe the equality inspectors at the corporation didn’t get the chance to vet Richard Littlejohn’s series for Radio 2, The…
Bracing and provocative – but would Wagner have approved? Arcola’s Rheingold reviewed
When it comes to the opening of Wagner’s Das Rheingold, Mark Twain probably put it as well as anyone: ‘Out…
Lucian Freud insisted a forgery could be as great as the real thing. Was he right?
Perhaps we should blame Vasari. Ever since the publication of his Lives of the Artists, and to an ever-increasing extent,…
Sweet but formulaic: Blinded by Light reviewed
Once upon a time two men sat in a New York bar lamenting the state of Broadway. So they decided…
Reliably odd but the deranged proggery grates: King’s Mouth by The Flaming Lips reviewed
Grade: B- So a queen dies as her giant baby is being born. The baby grows very big indeed and…
Standing on the Acropolis brings out the Greek in me
Athens I am struggling up the slippery marble steps of the Acropolis with the Geldofs and the Bismarcks. We gaze…
Do I have cancer in my left eye?
My luck had to run out one of these fine days. Everybody’s does sooner or later. I’ve had a fantastic…
The travellers could teach the locals a thing or two about being responsible citizens
The travellers were blamed for fly-tipping when all that was left on the common after they went back up north…
Bridge
‘Table presence’ is a funny old expression. It sounds as though it refers to a player’s magnetic appeal or domineering…
Adams Avalanche
Mickey Adams won the British Championship, which finished last week in Torquay, for the seventh time. Leading scores (out of…
no. 566
White to play. This position is a variation from Adams-Pigott, Torquay 2019. How can White crash through to gain a…
Redoing the hokey-cokey
In Competition No. 3110 you were invited to provide a version of the hokey-cokey filtered through the pen of a…
2420: Crafty
Four unclued lights are thematic and are defined by two others. They are found in The 21 and 2 (also the…
to 2417: Six nations
The unclued lights are LAND OF (25A): MILK AND HONEY (11A), CAKES (12A), HOPE AND GLORY (39A), ENCHANTMENT (7D), MY…
Donald Trump isn’t to blame for America’s mass shootings
The BBC’s flagship news and current affairs programme wasn’t in any doubt about who to blame for America’s latest bout…
Any true English cricket lover has to acknowledge that Steve Smith is a great hero
During the World Cup (remember that?), Virat Kohli, the very model of a modern major cricketer, appealed to Indian fans…
Dear Mary: How can I deal with overly demonstrative colleagues?
Q. A friend constantly walks around with his bootlaces undone. His wife declines to nag him on the grounds she…
Lunch on Leonard Cohen Island: The Pirate Bar reviewed
The Pirate Bar is an oddity, even for this column: a bar and restaurant themed in homage to a pirate,…
Where did Boris Johnson’s ‘gloomsters’ come from?
When Boris Johnson hit out at ‘the doomsters and the gloomsters’, I was willing to believe that the word gloomster…
Sylvia in Houston
Houston is a prosperous Texan city, the hub of the US oil and gas industries. And home to the city’s…
The Year My Woke Broke
When Prince Harry revealed, in the issue of Vogue his wife guest-edited, that they would only have two children ‘to…
Doing the Makarrata
So here we go again. What I will call ‘Atsic mark II’ is currently getting pollies, journos and lawyers in…
The G-G should resign
Australia’s constitutional system cannot function properly with a Governor-General inserting himself into contemporary political debate. If the current Governor-General wishes…
