Public enemy
Stephen Bayley announces the launch of The Spectator’s inaugural What’s That Thing? Award for the worst piece of public art of 2015
All in the worst possible taste
In his overconsumption of food, money and clothes, the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll showed the way, as a new exhibition of Elvisiana at the O2 proves
Elephant in the room
Plus: Salt and Silver, also at Tate Britain, is an exhibition that proves that some of the earliest photographs ever taken were the best
Russia with love
Mark Hudson travels to St Petersburg to see how the nihilism of Bacon goes down in Russia
How J-Lo can you go?
Plus: Hinterland - an ethereal, dreamy, innovative, coming-of-age tale that only cost £10,000 to make
Audience participation
Plus: a much-needed corrective to paedophile hysteria in How I Learned to Drive at the Southwark Playhouse
Eurocrash and Eurotrash
Plus: tin-ear Flamenco from Sadler’s Wells and deft circus choreography from Cirkopolis
Twin peaks
Both the music and stage direction are powerfully realised in this Puccini / de Falla double bill
Glad to be Grey
Peter Phillips doesn’t care how people come across Tallis’s mathematical masterpiece ‘Spem in alium’ as long as they do
What the doctor ordered
Plus: a heretical documentary about trains on BBC4 and a dazzling new sitcom from Channel 4 that makes it embarrassingly hard to avoid the words ‘instant’ and ‘classic’
Special effects
Don't always believe the phrase 'We have something special for you'. But also beware of that some podcasts will temporarily blind you – by making you cry
High life
Varoufakis is a third-rate academic posing as Mussonlini — and I apologise to il Duce’s memory
Real life
Me exercising my legal rights made it want to lock its doors and hammer large pieces of crooked wood over its windows
Long life
So perhaps we would all be happier if we could just stop worrying about what class everyone belongs
Bridge
Bridge players never get bored of each other’s company for one simple reason: interesting hands are like juicy bits of…
Gnomic
The elite tournament at Zurich, which finished last week, has adopted a system for determining the ultimate trophy winner which…
No. 351
White to play. This position is from Nakamura-Karjakin, Zurich classic 2015. White’s knight seems trapped but he can rescue it…
Londoner’s Diary
In Competition No. 2886 you were invited to submit a Pepys’-eye view of modern life. Pepys’s candid and minutely observed…
2200
The unclued Down lights (individually or as a pair) are of a kind in short, as are the unclued Across…
To 2197: Missing
The unclued lights are some of the words highlighted in Chambers 2011 which were unfortunately omitted from the 2014 edition…
£67,000 is not enough for the brightest and the best
We’re in danger of turning Parliament back into a rich man’s pastime
Going the wrong way one step at a time
Otherwise you end up with the same boring bastards every time
