Forget Robin Hood and Girl in the Spider’s Web – Shoplifters is the film to see this week
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
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
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
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
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
Trainer Dan Skelton and his jockey brother Harry have 100 winners on the board already but for most of us…
Bridge
DO NOT DOUBLE PARTSCORES WHEN PLAYING TEAMS. Here is Geir Helgemo somehow fooling his expert opponents into defending like total…
Dante’s millions
As I write, the London world championship is tied at 3½-3½, after seven games. In striving to move ahead, the…
no. 533
White to play. This is a variation from Caruana-Carlsen, World Championship, London 2018. White has sacrificed a piece in order…
Trumpian verse
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
Three unclued lights featured the remaining ones, two of two words, the others paired. Two of them do double duty.…
to 2383: Flagged
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
When I proposed to Caroline back in 2000, she was a trainee solicitor and I was a freelance journalist. In…
Trump may have a point about fake news
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?
Q. I am organising my 30th birthday party weekend at a large country house kindly lent to me by friends…
The paradox of Burgundy
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’
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
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
As leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Richard Tognetti has never done quite what was expected, other than to be…
Aux bien pensants
Next year in Jerusalem Scott Morrison has no alternative now but to move the Australian Embassy from Tel Aviv to…
Simon Collins
In the England of my childhood, greengrocers were heavily reliant on South African farmers. This was still the case when…
Canberra diary
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
There is a famous fable that if you threw a frog into a pot of hot water it would immediately…
Terrorism notes
PM’s plain speaking about motivations and excuses The Commonwealth criminal code defines ‘terrorist act’ as one intended to coerce or…
