Going Global
Lloyd Evans says yes – but a Great Luvvie Backlash is inevitable when any public body is exposed to reform
Wings of desire
From Babylonian ducks to Norwich City canaries: Andrew Lambirth admires the bravery of Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery’s new survey
Boringly beautiful
The dancing in their new Sadler's Wells show, Sehnsucht/Schmetterling, may have been perfect, but it was also boring
Keep it clean
A lot of the best rock ‘n’ roll hasn’t had a bath in weeks but, at the moment, Marcus Berkmann can’t get enough of Coldplay’s lovely glowing textures
Close encounters
Plus: A Glyndebourne production that fails the fragile early Mozart opera, La finta giardiniera
Stuff happens
But considering Richard Linklater’s new film Boyhood was 12 years in the making, thank God the kid didn’t turn into a 20-stone slob
The lady vanishes
Plus: a Radio 4 drama about a Jewish boy who died in Jerusalem in 1947 that could have benefited from a woman’s perspective
North star
This musical celebration offers the opportunity to tootle across Yorkshire, picnicking along the way
Bridge
The European Team Championships drew to a close last week and the most successful country overall was …England! The doughty…
Attack
This was the watchword of Grandmaster Dragoljub Velimirovic, one of the leading players of the former Yugoslavia. I first encountered…
No. 322
White to play. This position is from Velimirovic-Gipslis, Havana 1971. How did White conclude? Answers to me at The Spectator…
Dead-end job
In Competition No. 2855 you were invited to compose an elegy for an endangered profession. Estate agents, travel agents, publishers,…
2170: Hector’s Summer Nights
The unclued lights (one of three words and three of two), as three pairs and three individually, are of a…
to 2167: Groupies
The unclued lights are ‘nouns of assemblage’, all listed on page 6 of the Word Lover’s Miscellany section in Chambers…
Falling short of a true colossus
Take it from an insecure five-foot-eighter: little men have a lot to recommend them
