Seeing Nelson in a new light
I picked up my grandson from his mother’s flat and noticed the change in him the second I clapped eyes…
My horse is a psychopath — and you’d better believe it
Why do people find it so hard to believe that a horse can be a psychopath? Not an obvious, screaming…
Cold Comfort Farm comes to Kenya
Laikipia I woke with the breath of a leopard a few feet from me as I lay in my bed.…
Bridge
The England ladies trials, two weekends ago, were as exciting as ever, but also rather heartbreaking for me and my…
Chess on the Rock
The Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian has won first prize of £25,000 in the important Tradewise Masters which has just finished…
no. 492
White to play. This position is from Wang Hao-Howell, Gibraltar 2018. What opportunity did White overlook? Answers to me at…
Occasional verse
In Competition No. 3034 you were invited to provide a poem written by a poet laureate present or past on…
Counterclaim
The first line of a 4 (two words) consists of 7A and the puzzle’s 3 41; the second line is…
to 2342: Decorative
The key terms are ART NOUVEAU (12) and JUGENDSTIL (19). One indicates 24 and 28D, and the other can be…
In today’s brave new world, fat is a high-tech issue
I have a confession to make: I’m a yo-yo dieter. For the past ten years, I’ve lost a bit of…
This Six Nations could be anyone’s – and it couldn’t be more exciting
‘It’s never easy going to Rome,’ observed Anthony Watson after the traditional mauling of a hard-working but outgunned Italian side…
Dear Mary: What do you do when your secretary accuses you of not making a pass?
Q. I am at the age where parts of the body start to go wrong, and I have a minor…
A new addition to north London’s underwhelming restaurants: Café Hampstead reviewed
Café Hampstead is a new café in — big reveal! — Hampstead, the gaudiest of the old villages on the…
Jejune
A range of book reviewers’ clichés was held up to mockery 60 years ago, in a letter by Jocelyn Brooke…
Burdens of proof and blatant bias
The non-lawyer readers of this fine publication may not be aware of a key premise (really it is a trade-off…
To stay or go?
Senator Lucy Gichuhi’s decision to sit with the Liberal Party is a small but important step militating against the fragmentation…
Abusing the Holocaust
This year’s commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, was at once illuminated…
Brown Study
My colleagues and I in the noble profession of investigative journalism have now spent 12 months poring over the goldmine…
Railways and the Raj
Many of our acquaintances now rarely watch 7.30, partly out of irritation with the succession of whingers and trade union…
Australian notes
Turnbull’s 18C on steroids Rahm Emmanuel, one-time Chief of Staff in the Obama Administration, once said: ‘You never let a…
Eyeballing DFAT
In republican Canberra, admiration for British tradition is thin. But in one respect it’s alive and well. Our career mandarins…
Down the rabbit hole into Trump’s America
A curious discovery at this year’s Australian Open tennis showed how America’s President Trump trauma is filtering into the most…
Business/Robbery etc
Small businesses and individuals income-earners beware! Now that Tax Commissioner Chris Jordan’s successful five-year multi-billion dollar campaign against tax dodging…
We must not go down the Corbyn path
Perhaps because of its outrageous early ‘70s sexism, one of Britain’s most important ural films, The Rise and Rise of…
