Triple thrill
Thrilling debuts, starry guests and a tear-stained farewell at Covent Garden this week as the Royal Ballet closed the season…
The doorstep
You have probably been hearing a lot about doorsteps recently. Politicians love to demonstrate how much they care about ordinary,…
Static electricity
My Cousin Rachel is an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s mystery-romance and, even though it stars the forever wonderful Rachel…
Diary stories
By chance on Saturday morning, I tuned into Radio 4 and heard Professor Clare Brant talking on Saturday Live about…
How the west coast was won
There’s an incredibly addictive old iPhone game called Doodle God where you effectively invent civilisation from scratch by combining basic…
Snoop Dogg: Neva Left
The problem Calvin Broadus has is persuading the rest of us that he still a baaaad muthafucka. Snoop is now…
White-knuckle ride
Playing in an orchestra that disintegrates mid-concert is not an experience you forget. One moment everything’s motoring along nicely. Suddenly…
Glamming it up
Late on the Friday afternoon of The Great Escape — the annual three-day event for which the London music industry…
The killing God
On 6 July 1535, the severed head of England’s former lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More, was carried across London Bridge…
Generation wars
British general elections have often evolved from contests between parties into battles between two opposing themes or ideas. In 1964,…
To catch a jihadi
My taxi was about 90 seconds behind the murderers who struck on London Bridge last week. My wife and I…
Post-truth, pure nonsense
For as long as there have been politicians, they have lied, fabricated and deceived. The manufacture of falsehood has changed…
Big trouble in little Qatar
Washington DC At 8:06 on Tuesday morning the Tweeter-in-Chief reached for his Android phone and told the world: ‘During my…
Let there be dark
Who’s afraid of the dark? Who now fears shadows and bumps in the night? Where do you even find any…
Myths and morals
Handel’s Semele, one of the most enjoyable operas (or opera-oratorio, if you insist) in the repertoire, is, in its upshot,…
Fantastic Mr Fox
Sand in the Sandwiches is the perfect show for those who feel the West End should be an intellectual funfair.…
Bermuda diary
Want to stop the world and get off? Try spending some time on a yacht with extremely limited communications racing…
Health matters
In Competition No. 3001 you were invited to take inspiration from the recently published Walt Whitman’s Guide to Manly Health…
2313: Goldfish by Fieldfare
In ten clues the wordplay leads to the answer plus one extra letter. These letters in clue order give a…
2310: Constitutional Amendment
Procne (37D), Tereus (23D), Scylla (19D) and Arachne (30D) were all given as anagrams, as was Ovid (42D). Daphne (1D)…
Dear Mary
Q. We have received a ‘save the week’ card from friends who take a villa abroad every year. We usually…
Gilded prostitution
‘An English peer of very old title is desirous of marrying at once a very wealthy lady, her age and…
Rescuing an Irish gem
This large and splendid book is more in the nature of a grand illustrated guidebook than a historical monograph. Hundreds…
The sting of betrayal
This may seem an odd thing to say about a writer who’s been officially declared a National Living Treasure in…
First signs of thaw
The Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party in February 1956 passed off entirely without incident. Speeches on the next five-year…
