Marty’s way
The Scorsese tropes flow thick and fast: drugs, beatings, voiceovers. Still, he manages to make you admire the lurid excess of the Seventies, which is quite an achievement
Low life
I was desperate to ask Maurice, my guide, how many people he’d killed but his quiet modesty stopped me
Long life
It was hairy at times but the excitement of those early days is something those involved will never forget
Bridge
Pierre Zimmermann, Monaco’s uber-sponsor, has put another unmissable, thrilling tournament in the calendar. The first European Winter Games gave those…
Rocky 14
The 14th Tradewise tournament at Gibraltar ended in a triumph for the American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. Naka, as he is…
No. 396
White to play. This position is from Anna Muzychuk-Salem, Gibraltar Masters 2016. How did White conjure up a decisive material…
Valentine’s triolet
In Competition No. 2935 you were invited to submit a Valentine’s triolet. A famous example of the triolet is Frances…
2248: In the stars
In the clues, the 9 stars represent omitted words (one of which is a dialect variant of another). Those 9…
To 2245: Fair and square
Corrections of misprints give A GRECIAN URN. The POET (23) reporting its message (perimeter + 4 30) is KEATS (42). First…
Emma Thompson’s wrong, and not just about the EU
She flaunts her membership of the liberal intelligentsia by bashing Britain
Cricket needs the West Indies
Plus the awful guff written about Leicester City and what Sergio Parisse must not get away with
Italian cuts
I like my Italian food savage, not polite; still, this is a good restaurant that couldn’t exist anywhere else
Flying colours
Five weeks ago, amid the tempestuous climes of mid-January, we threw down the gauntlet for our Prime Minister to prove…
Australian notes
This is the last reshuffle before the election, we promise. No more resignations, no more scandals, no more inter-party warfare.…
Farewell, John Hirst
The distinguished Australian historian John Hirst has sadly died at age 73. Those who knew him at La Trobe University…
Culture buff
Conde Nast was the publisher of Vogue Australia in 1965. That was the year I started with Vogue but, much…
I’m standing up for Trump
Conservatives should stop holding their noses at the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency
