Forget Robin Hood and Girl in the Spider’s Web – Shoplifters is the film to see this week

24 November 2018 9:00 am

The major releases this week are Robin Hood, as a big Hollywood retelling, and The Girl in the Spider’s Web,…

They. Cannot. Write. Songs: Mumford & Sons reviewed

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Grade: D+ I promise you this isn’t simply class loathing. Yer toffs have contributed to British rock and pop and…

An extraordinary encounter in a New York taxi

24 November 2018 9:00 am

New York   If I wrote this in one of those newspaper diaries about metropolitan life, no one would believe…

It was carnage in our French cave

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Evenings, I sit in a chair facing the cave interior and Catriona lies on the new sofa facing me (and,…

How to destroy a house from the ground up

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Lying in bed one night as the rain pounded down, I became aware of a yellow patch forming on the…

My hot tips for the coming season

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Trainer Dan Skelton and his jockey brother Harry have 100 winners on the board already but for most of us…

Bridge

24 November 2018 9:00 am

DO NOT DOUBLE PARTSCORES WHEN PLAYING TEAMS. Here is Geir Helgemo somehow fooling his expert opponents into defending like total…

Dante’s millions

24 November 2018 9:00 am

As I write, the London world championship is tied at 3½-3½, after seven games. In striving to move ahead, the…

no. 533

24 November 2018 9:00 am

White to play. This is a variation from Caruana-Carlsen, World Championship, London 2018. White has sacrificed a piece in order…

Trumpian verse

24 November 2018 9:00 am

In Competition No. 3075 you were invited to submit poems by Donald Trump.  The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump, which…

2386: Outside what we know

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Three unclued lights featured the remaining ones, two of two words, the others paired. Two of them do double duty.…

to 2383: Flagged

24 November 2018 9:00 am

The unclued lights are presenters of BLUE PETER: individually at 39; pairs are 3/2, 7/22, 15A/15D, 15A/17, 25/14, and 32/31,…

My wife has gone back to work – and I’ve turned into a SADDO

24 November 2018 9:00 am

When I proposed to Caroline back in 2000, she was a trainee solicitor and I was a freelance journalist. In…

The Battle for Britain

24 November 2018 9:00 am

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Trump may have a point about fake news

24 November 2018 9:00 am

In recent years, much scrutiny has been paid to the workings of social media algorithms. Driven by escalating competition for…

Dear Mary: How can I turn my arrogant son into a snowflake?

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Q. I am organising my 30th birthday party weekend at a large country house kindly lent to me by friends…

The paradox of Burgundy

24 November 2018 9:00 am

I was trying to remember what I once knew about the theology of the Reformation and especially the various factions’…

Word of the week: ‘cakeism’

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Latest despatches from the Dictionary Wars bring news of Oxford’s words of the year, a counterblast to last week’s words…

Churchill’s shameful heirs

24 November 2018 9:00 am

It would be difficult to imagine a more cowardly and contemptible action, or one heavier with the promise of long-term…

Richard Tognetti and the ACO

24 November 2018 9:00 am

As leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti has never done quite what was expected, other than to be…

Aux bien pensants

24 November 2018 9:00 am

Next year in Jerusalem Scott Morrison has no alternative now but to move the Australian Embassy from Tel Aviv to…

Simon Collins

24 November 2018 9:00 am

In the England of my childhood, greengrocers were heavily reliant on South African farmers. This was still the case when…

Canberra diary

24 November 2018 9:00 am

I like Canberra. I’d like it even more if it had been named ‘Shakespeare’, one of the options on the…

Terror’s wet nurse

24 November 2018 9:00 am

There is a famous fable that if you threw a frog into a pot of hot water it would immediately…

Terrorism notes

24 November 2018 9:00 am

PM’s plain speaking about motivations and excuses The Commonwealth criminal code defines ‘terrorist act’ as one intended to coerce or…