Eastern promise
Plus: there’s a thrilling Verdi rarity, Giovanna d’Arco, at Buxton but Lucia di Lammermoor is not an essential night at the opera
Night at the circus
Plus: Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier square up to each other at Southwark Playhouse in a play that is almost a triumph
Tax return
Plus: Radio 3’s The Last Moor reviewed: ‘The least important thing about Othello is the colour of his skin’
Serial thriller
Plus: Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen is the interior design equivalent of the Greek economy
Wild life
We are building fences against people who are dedicated to burglary and malicious damage 24 hours a day
Bridge
Omar Sharif did so much for bridge. He inspired countless others through his own devotion to the game (‘Acting is…
Fabulous Fabiano
Fabiano Caruana notched the result of his life at the Sinquefield Trophy in St Louis last year. Since then he…
No. 370
Black to play. This position is a variation from Kramnik-Naiditsch, Dortmund 2015. How can Black make a decisive material gain?…
Poetry in motion
In Competition No. 2906 you were invited to write a poem about an encounter in an airport. Craig Raine’s poem…
2220: Poem II
Unclued lights (two hyphened) are words (all but one of which are in ODQ) from a poem whose title appears…
Urban foxes, the ginger menace
Suggestions on a postcard: we need to solve this scourge of our cities
The presentation of choice
Decision-making could be so much easier if information was presented differently
Shorten’s mensis horribilis
One problem of being Opposition leader is getting air time. They yearn for cut-through moments when the full focus of…
Why conservatives should love Shorten
Tony Abbott’s best chance of winning the next election is the person the PM’s supporters are so keen to destroy
Royal diary
The first time I met the Queen, I was eight years old and she was visiting my school, in Brentwood,…
