Is it art or science?
Plus: a wisely small show of Dutch flower paintings at the National Gallery and a unwisely medium-sized Sicily exhibition at the British Museum
Sound and vision
Janacek’s operas are unique and uniquely great – but only a full sensitive staging will get this across. This fine Royal Festival Hall performance did not do this
Sex offender
The weirdo recluse pop genius was a girls’ idea of what rock music ought to sound like - an act of debauched sexual communion
Polly’s pleb adventure
Plus: My Mother Said I Never Should is a chick-flick evening with one great selling point: Maureen Lipman
BBC Proms
Bruch’s Violin Concerto, Holst’s The Planets, Colin Matthews’ 2,765th Proms piece, a Strictly Come Dancing prom, a Shakespeare theme... It’s programming on autopilot
Word processing
Plus: a drama about Shakespeare’s dying days on Radio 3, and Trevor Phillips explains why he changed his mind about multiculturalism
His dark materials
Now that TV has overtaken the books, will season six of HBO’s cult fantasy live up to George R.R. Martin’s sinister genius, wonders James Delingpole
High life
I read this in an American newspaper (it was written by a woman who used to edit my copy for…
Low life
I’d forgotten how boozed, drugged-up and clinically depressed I was but reading them brought it all back
Sandown thrills
At a racecourse you really mean it — maybe that’s why, at Sandown, all our prayers were answered
Bridge
The day before the London Marathon, Young Chelsea BC held its spring half-marathon. Eighty-seven boards were played over 12 hours…
Evolution
World champion Magnus Carlsen takes much inspiration from the games of the former champion Emanuel Lasker. Lasker and Carlsen share…
No. 406
White to play. This is a position from Bjornsson-Sigurdsson, Iceland Team Championship 2016. How did White make the most of…
Exit strategy
In Competition No. 2945 you were invited to suggest remarks guaranteed to get rid of a guest who is outstaying…
2258: Perimetrical jigsaw
Clues are listed in alphabetical order of their solutions. An 11-word quotation runs around the perimeter from the top left-hand…
To 2255: In the pink
Oscar WILDE (35) described hunting as THE UNSPEAKABLE IN FULL PURSUIT OF THE UNEATABLE (1A, 14, 30, 42), and the…
What if Murdoch owned the Beeb?
A new book says the left-liberal bias is so ingrained it would survive any change of ownership
A triumph for brutality
Plus: why Jamie Vardy: The Movie is having script problems, and the dazzling dancers of the Indian Premier League
Lost in Piccadilly
The Criterion in Piccadilly has a cursed location. It’s lucky I love rotting beauty
