2280: Acorns
The unclued lights are of a kind, verifiable in Brewer. Ignore one apostrophe. Across 1 Top for one dining…
Let the right ones in
As the UK prepares for Brexit into the big wide world outside, it has been pointed out that the Foreign…
Aussie Mussies
There have been few developments to better illustrate the collective delusions of the progressive media and the Islamic community than…
Serpent of mud
From ‘The fall of Combles and Thiepval’, The Spectator, 30 September 1916: The trench — ugly, dirty, dull, untidy serpent…
Bridge
TGR’s rubber bridge club is a bit like the set of your favourite soap. You have the regulars, of varying…
In search of Mayism
What does Theresa May believe? The new Prime Minister has had the summer to settle into her job and has…
Eddie Howe for England
The name of Jozef Venglos won’t mean much to most of us apart from a few Aston Villa completists with…
The Spectator’s Notes
Mathias Döpfner, the extremely tall, extremely intelligent head of Axel Springer, is unusual in the generally conformist German business elite…
Baiting greyhound owners
Greyhound racing is to be outlawed in NSW from July 1, purportedly based on the findings of the McHugh report,…
Let’s bring the wolves back into Britain
A year ago there was a confirmed sighting, and even film, of a wild wolf in the Netherlands for the…
Technical nightmare
Surely Malcolm Williamson represented the ultimate process of career self-destruction possible in a culture which had never experienced suicide-bombers. When…
We know who Theresa May is against. But who is she for?
One of the professional drawbacks of coming from Scotland and then moving to London is that I don’t really know…
Let the metropolitan elite lead the way
How does one join the Liberal Metro-politan Elite? What should be the qualifications? I must be an LME member because…
If Deutsche Bank goes down without a bailout, I really will eat my hat
‘Can anyone seriously imagine the German state and corporate establishment allowing the bank that bears their country’s name to go…
Deadly silence
There was a time when the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo would have featured strongly in political debate in Britain. Just…
The May machine
Theresa May isn’t much given to shows of emotion. When Andrea Leadsom called her to concede in the Tory leadership…
No. 428
Black to play. This position is a variation from Gelfand-Mamedyarov, Tal Memorial Blitz 2016. Black has various strong moves but…
Doctor’s orders
Second acts in British politics are vanishingly rare these days and Liam Fox, restored to the cabinet by Theresa May,…
I know an anti-Tory pact won’t work
I appeared on Radio 4 with Shirley Williams recently and as we were leaving I asked her if she thought…
May’s beard
This week, the Tory party conference ought to be gripped by the question, who the hell is Nick Timothy, the…
Pens, sex and potatoes
I hoped that Bronte would be filled with Victorian writers licking ink off their fingers and bitching about Mrs Gaskell…
Them’s fighting words
First speeches are one of the few times Parliamentarians can present their motivations to the Chamber. After a precarious election…
Of rats and men
‘I really, really hate rats,’ Sir David Attenborough has boasted. ‘If a rat appears in a room, I have to…
Dis-con notes
How long, O Lord, how long? In ‘Del-Con Notes: Election Post-Mortem’ (06/08/16) I surveyed the Liberal Party catastrophe wrought by…
New York Notebook
The first presidential debate was a disappointment. Half an hour into the big Trump-Clinton show on Long Island, many among…
