Are you being funny?
For a good sitcom, catch the latest series of BBC2’s Episodes. Plus: does BBC2’s The Game end on an infuriating cliffhanger finale with the cry of ‘second series, please’? Of course it does
There will be blood
Plus: the World Service’s documentary about Tibet’s female football team shows why we must preserve this corner of the BBC from further cuts
High life
This depressing inevitability makes me want to go on a cruise with Spectator readers for the next five years
Low life
Your entries to the ‘drunkest I’ve ever been’ contest make me feel sober and upright by comparison
Bridge
The Hacketts are probably the best known bridge-playing family in the world. They live in Manchester but travel constantly —…
Boris Good Enough
Boris Gulko, celebrated both as a grandmaster and a former Soviet dissident, has recently completed his great trilogy of instructional…
No. 365
Black to play. This is from Caruana-Jakovenko, Khanty-Mansiysk 2015. Black is winning -easily, but can you find the most accurate…
Sauce material
In Competition No. 2900 you were invited to write a short story that ends on a condiment of your choice.…
2214: What’s up?
The theme word is 29 down, which defines each of the other unclued lights (including one of two words) in…
To 2211: Toddler hero
‘THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH YIELDING PLACE TO NEW’, from Tennyson’s IDYLLS OF THE KING, suggests the outcome of ANAGRAMMATISM (2).…
Are the cultural Marxists in retreat, or lying low?
But I have faith that they’ll carry on, at the Royal Court and elsewhere
In praise of the ‘Don’t know’ voter
It’s the last-minute swingers, not the ideological warriors, who make democracy function
Road to Darlinghurst
Lo and behold the number of politicians enjoying a last minute Road to Damascus conversion – or should that be…
Gotcha by the Shorten curlies
The mis-named ‘marriage equality’ issue must be decided by the people, not by Parliament
Australian diary
I land six weeks after the Israeli elections and only a few days ahead of the British ones. Jerusalem’s political…
Time Gentleman, please…
The ‘Recognise’ campaign is being pushed by Big (Old) Men hoping to relive past glories
Australian notes
The Royal Commission into child abuse has already done enormous service in establishing, and making public, the vast range of…
