Ghost Hands
Sant’Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna Your hands brush marble, feel impelled To touch where crisp cold tesserae Compose a fine array Of…
A Moment
There it is, the wren. Keep still. Breathe in. The tiny bird with stumpy tail has landed near the windowsill…
Egypt
Egypt’s revolution of 2011 didn’t just get rid of President Mubarak: it did a pretty good job of clearing out…
A Moment
There it is, the wren. Keep still. Breathe in. The tiny bird with stumpy tail has landed near the windowsill…
From Russia with love
In the James Bond film From Russia with Love there is an evil mastermind named Kronsteen. The character is in…
No. 356
White to play. This position is a variation from Bronstein-Zilberstein, Tbilisi 1973. Bronstein has just given up a piece on…
Yawn
In Competition No. 2891 you were invited to think of the most boring lecture topic possible and submit an extract…
Your problems solved
Q. Someone I was at university with but hadn’t seen much of over the ten years since invited me to…
A cemetery with cocktails
La Coupole, Montparnasse, is the grandest and most famous of the old pre-war Parisian brasseries; that is, if you have…
Passion, please
When launching the Conservatives’ campaign this week, David Cameron told party activists that the general election was ‘on a knife…
High life
End of season is always bittersweet, the melting snows a bit like autumn leaves. But the days are longer and…
They
I’ve been having a lovely time splashing about in the new Fowler. It has been revised by Jeremy Butterfield, an…
Can McIlroy become the magnificent seventh?
The grand slam in golf is a feat almost impossible to imagine now. It meant winning all four golfing majors…
Lefty myths about inequality
As a Tory, I’ve been thinking a lot about inequality recently. Has it really increased in the past five years?…
Lefty myths about inequality
As a Tory, I’ve been thinking a lot about inequality recently. Has it really increased in the past five years?…
The price of success
After listening to a violinist’s justification of his playing, Dr Samuel Johnson responded tartly: ‘Difficult do you call it, Sir?…
Caesar, Pompey and the SNP
Alex Salmond, the ex-first minister who proved incapable of making Scotland independent, has assured the world that he and his…
Barometer
Royally paid Staff at Windsor Castle were balloted in strike action over pay. What can you earn in the royal…
Sober into battle
From ‘News of the Week’, The Spectator, 3 April 1915: The chief obstacle to prohibition, as we point out elsewhere, is…
Portrait of the week
Home The nation greeted with well disguised enthusiasm the beginning of the general election campaign after the dissolution of parliament.…
Monky business
We ballet-goers may be the most self-deceiving audiences in theatre. Put a ‘new work’ in front of us and half…
Wife swap
My impression that Bach has come to rival Shakespeare as a flawless reference point in the cultural life of the…
Wife swap
My impression that Bach has come to rival Shakespeare as a flawless reference point in the cultural life of the…
