to 2313: Goldfish
Extra letters in clues gave SAM GOLDWYN, to whom are attributed I’LL GIVE YOU (5) A DEFINITE (8) MAYBE (1A),…
Dear Mary
Q. We have friends to stay each year in Scotland and it’s always a pleasure. Guests know there is signal…
High flyers
It is conventional wisdom in the publishing industry that, despite the old adage, readers do indeed judge books by their…
A toast to the new Scottish dawn
‘Stands Scotland where it did?’ As the bottles circulated, we were able to answer Macduff’s question in much more optimistic…
Whimsical digressions
The practical difficulties of extracting keys from the pockets of tight-fitting trousers while ascending stairs; the logistical hazards of seducing…
Size matters
Trust scientists to ruin all our fun. The spectacularly beautiful 2014 film reboot of Godzilla, it turns out, is anatomically…
Worthy, but wordy
Milan Kundera’s novel Immortality wryly depicts Goethe preparing for immortality — neatly laying out his life in Dichtung und Warheit…
Vice guys
In 1981, an FBI team visited Donald Trump to discuss his plans for a casino in Atlantic City. Trump admitted…
Fad fury
Anthony Warner is angry. He’s angry about diets. He’s angry about detoxes. He’s angry about pseudoscience — and he has…
Two dark tales
Just over halfway through this grim and gripping book, the author describes herself and her girlfriend ‘lying on my bed…
The appeal of mysticism
This extraordinary book has two main characters: Gershom Scholem (1897–1982), an early Zionist and the founder of the modern study…
A choice of first novels
Patty Yumi Cottrell’s blackly comic and sophisticated debut Sorry to Disturb the Peace (And Other Stories, £10) opens with Helen…
Life classes
It has taken much of a celebrated literary life for Elif Batuman to produce a novel. At the beginning of…
High life
A major Greek ship owner, whose political knowledge matches his wealth and business acumen, explained to me what the Qatar…
The flibbertigibbet Pope
After two Popes of towering intellectual and spiritual strength, it is difficult to become used to the fact that their…
The peaceful majority are irrelevant
Islam has exported its primitive, age-old and endless Sunni vs Shiite war of religious violence around the world, expanding it…
On a sensitive issue
In 1939 Paul Hasluck published ‘Our Southern Half Caste Natives and their condition.’ It was a pamphlet based on a…
A penance or a curse
If the UK general election had been a military battle it would be taught in Army staff colleges around the…
Business/Robbery etc
What’s left of Australia’s manufacturing industry needs to get its political hands dirty. If it really wants to survive it…
No pie in the sky
The authoritarian attitude of Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has been challenged by Robin Speed, the President of the Rule of…
Deadly self-censorship
Political correctness is eating itself. It’s in very real danger of destroying us, and will do so while apologising for…
Low life
I got up, made a pot of coffee and sat and read the paper. A churchgoing charity worker had stolen…
Romance liver
‘Ha, ha!’ said my husband, waving the Spectator letters page in the air. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ He was overcome by…
Real life
Since moving to my dream home in the country a month ago, I’ve only had to fight a parking dispute,…
