Why won’t anyone live with me?
When I placed an advert for a lodger I really did expect potential tenants to want to come and see…
Racing for the app generation
Making racing profitable depends on getting information at the right time. In the Stewards’ Cup at Goodwood two Saturdays ago…
Bridge
When I was first married, there were no satnavs to hold our hands; we relied on maps (if there was…
Luke’s gospel
Perhaps the outstanding clash of the recently concluded British championship in Hull, supported by Capital Developments Waterloo Ltd, was the…
No. 519
White to play. This position is from Fernandez-Pritchett, Hull 2018. White found an extraordinary, problem-like move to finish the game.…
The appliance of science
In Competition No. 3061 you were invited to imagine a well-known author who doesn’t normally write in the genre having…
2372: Spot-on
One unclued light (three words) is a phrase referring to an item whose scientific name is formed by two unclued…
to 2369: Prodigious
WUNDERKIND — given by corrections of misprints in clues — can be read as W UNDER KIND, indicating the unclued…
Vocational schools are not to be sneered at
When I was 16 I failed all my O-levels, bar a grade C in English Literature, and concluded I wasn’t…
Why data doesn’t always reveal the truth
In late 1973 the graduate admissions department at UC Berkeley discovered that for the forthcoming year it had awarded places…
Dear Mary: What do I say when people want to visit my family’s stately home for free?
Q. My husband and I were among the first to arrive at a recent large house party in Scotland. We…
Wine, women and willow: a perfect combo for a perfect English summer day
The first time I went to Lord’s was in 1970, just before the unofficial Test series which replaced the cancelled…
Petrichor: an awkward word for a pleasant phenomenon
I’m not too sure about the word petrichor, invented in 1964 as a label for the pleasant smell frequently accompanying…
National roll of dishonour
In times of crisis, Australians demand leadership, leadership of the quality which that great Roman, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, or that…
Latham’s law
Who would have thought? It turns out Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser were racists. Poor old Gough spent decades in…
Simon Collins
Like many poms with a strong sense of post-colonial entitlement, I took a long hard look at Canada before I…
Should we bomb Iran?
Clearly, when I say ‘we’, I don’t mean you and me. As a responsible Speccie reader I’m sure you know…
Suffer your children
Of all the green/Left groups badgering schoolkids about human-caused global warming, the most determined is the Australian Academy of Science.…
Dear Jymbo
Dear Jymbo, I am a sad and disgruntled Liberal party member of parliament in Canberra. I thought I was being…
What did you not learn at school today?
It’s hard for a student at university these days, with all the awful things they (that’s the authorised pronoun for…
The House
The House is the economically direct title of a new book about ‘the dramatic story of the Sydney Opera House…
Brown study
There are a few things I want to get off my chest about politics. Starting at the top, I have…
Outrage over Anning
It goes without saying that the use of the two words ‘final solution’ in a parliamentary maiden speech about immigration,…
