no. 469
White to play. This is from Anand–Caruana, St Louis 2017. Can you spot White’s incredible winning move? Answers to me…
Big Auntie
It’s sneaky, the way in which the BBC, so much regarded as part of the family as to be nicknamed…
Classy and classic
The Edinburgh International Festival began with a double helping of incest. Curiously, Greek — Mark-Anthony Turnage’s East End retelling of…
2322: In memoriam
A pair of unclued lights (three words in total) give an event. Remaining unclued lights, including a pair (three words…
to 2319: poem III
The poem was Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’. The words from the poem are LEGS (16), TWO (17A), SANDS (26), NOTHING (37), KING…
High life
Greece is jasmine, bougainvillea, mimosa, cypress, olive, pine, oregano and sage, rock, sand, wine, fruit and the bluest and cleanest…
Low life
My grandson and I are reprising the 1968 film The Swimmer. Burt Lancaster is an advertising executive at a pool…
Real life
Like Steve McQueen gone slightly to seed, the builder boyfriend strode off into the sunset. Nothing becomes him so much…
Don’t like our diversity agenda? You’re fired
Earlier this week, a technology website published an internal memo written by a Google employee called James Damore criticising the…
Sutherland’s Law of Bad Maths
Imagine for a moment a parallel universe in which shops had mostly not yet been invented, and that all commerce…
Marble relief of a Roman trireme
Readers of Robert Harris’ thriller Pompeii might think they know a great deal about the devastating eruption of Mt Vesuvius…
Dave’s kept his head down, so let him chillax
David Cameron was in the news again this week after being paid £1 million a minute to give a speech…
Football wants the ‘somewheres’ to get lost
Some years ago, when Millwall played West Ham United, the Millwall fans sang the following song (to the tune of…
Acid reign
In 1988–9, British youth culture underwent the biggest revolution since the 1960s. The music was acid house, the drug: Ecstasy.…
Who is Kirill Petrenko?
Two summers ago, the BBC were offered a Proms visit by the Bavarian State Orchestra with its music director, Kirill…
Portrait of the week
Home British negotiators are prepared to pay up to £36 billion to the EU to settle the so-called divorce bill…
Barometer
Out with a whimper Usain Bolt managed only a bronze in his last appearance in the 100 metres at the…
Trump and his empire
All the news emerging from the White House seems to suggest that the USA is in that state so beloved…
Snobbery in the age of social media
We like to think we have moved on from the age of snobbery. Judging others by birth or status, or…
Driving Christianity from the public square
Children are once again being used in an aggressive Green/Left campaign aimed at imposing a hard line secular orthodoxy, contrary…
Domestic violence: more money, wrong priorities
The sturdy snowball of the feminist driven domestic violence industry is accumulating more and more layers of funding. What a…
Their ABC dumps impartiality with gay abandon
This morning The Australian reported ABC staff had been warned to zip it over marriage equality: ABC News Editorial Policy…
Pat Dodson’s sense and sensitivity
A refreshing note of practicality, even sanity, was injected into the sound and fury of the same-sex marriage debate this…
Who is Kirill Petrenko?
Two summers ago, the BBC were offered a Proms visit by the Bavarian State Orchestra with its music director, Kirill…
