Walking with cadence
Plus: why London Road is such a dazzlingly good film - it’s as much to do with Javier de Frutos’s choreography as Rufus Norris’s direction
Bad robots
Plus: when Churchill arrived at the BBC and asked the French translator if ‘the Frog speech’ was ready yet
High life
When I founded the American Conservative 13 years ago — the purpose being to shine a light on the neocon…
Bridge
Captaining a bridge team in a knock-out competition can be a thankless task. Sometimes, the hardest thing of all is…
Dark lord
A new book, Opening Repertoire: The Nimzo-Indian and Bogo-Indian by Christof Seilecki (Everyman Chess), focuses on the ever popular Nimzo-Indian…
No. 367
Black to play. This is from Spassky-Fischer, World Championship, Reykjavik (Game 5) 1972. This is probably the most famous ‘dark-square’…
Howzat!
In Competition No. 2903 you were invited to supply a poem incorporating a dozen cricketing terms. English poets love cricket:…
2216: Riddle
Two clues are without definitions; their answers form the name of a person with a leading part in four works…
To 2213: Surprising
The unclued Down lights are books, entered in reverse as indicated by the phrase TURN-UP FOR THE BOOKS (1A 27…
The best way to end the ‘poshness test’
Bright working-class children really are missing out – but the problem is at secondary schools, not at top firms
A lightbulb moment at the self-checkout
After years of misery, I’ve finally realised that I was being nudged the wrong way
Your problems solved
Plus: The local landowner’s excessive tree-planting; and when it’s fine to blank someone
Changing seasons
February seems a long time ago. It’s not only the seasons that have changed, so too has the entire political…
Australian notes
It was back in the mists of time but I easily recall the day in September 1961 when I dropped…
Tajikistan diary
Talking politics in Central Asia is often unwise, so I try to bring it up casually. ‘Oh you won’t believe…
Thick as bricks
The intertwined nature of business, media and politics built the corrupt edifice of WA Inc
