Classics in Crackland
Damian Thompson visits Brazil to hear Marin Alsop whip São Paulo’s orchestra into shape
On the beach
With a tidal wave of Peter Grimeses about to engulf us — performances in London, Birmingham and Leeds in September…
Ways of the world
The popular conception of Dame Laura Knight is of an energetic woman piling on the paint in the back of…
Girls allowed
More un-Shakespearean drama at London’s leading Shakespeare venue. The Globe has pushed the Bard off stage to make way for…
Sweet and sour
The easiest thing would be to sneer at Richard Curtis’s new film About Time, and so I will a little,…
It ain’t half hot
Gossip that an orchestral player fainted while performing in the Albert Hall during the recent heatwave points to a strange…
At home with the president
The most paranoid of presidents, Richard Nixon must have been feeling unwell when he allowed three of his closest aides…
The human factor
‘He was a natural broadcaster,’ said Nick Higham, after the death last week of the rugby player and sports broadcaster…
School’s in
You know you’re getting old when TV starts getting nostalgic about eras during which you were already feeling old and…
High life
I used to see him in El Morocco, the most famous nightclub of its era during the late Fifties and…
Low life
We picked up the key to the caravan, let ourselves in, ascertained the phone signal situation (none) and went to…
Real life
Some call me paranoid, but I don’t think one can be suspicious enough when it comes to the activities of…
Long life
I am embarrassed not by people using ‘non-U’ expressions but by people who still care about such things
Bridge
Holiday over – and I hopped on the plane home dribbling with excitement. I was going straight to Young Chelsea…
Anon anon sir
Nowadays it is standard, when publishing a chess game, to give the names of both players. This was not always…
No. 282
White to play. This is from Johnson-Anon, internet game 2013. Black’s problem is that his king is marooned in the…
Poetic pitch
In Competition 2813 you were invited to submit an application in verse, from the poet of your choice, for the…
2129: Dumpynose
The unclued lights, individually (each of two words), or paired, are of a specific kind, verifiable in Brewer 17th Edition…
To 2126: Word Building
The chain of anagrams is as follows: 40, 8, 18, 25, 22, 23, 21D, 19, 1A First prize Robert…
I’m thinking of going into politics
The Hammersmith Conservative Association will shortly be looking for a candidate to run against the sitting Labour MP in 2015…
Battle for Britain – 7th September 2013
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A phoenix from the Ashes
Those of us who watched the last day of the final Ashes Test of the present series enjoyed a rare…
Dear Mary
Q. In response to correspondence re. wedding gifts: there is no need for a couple to have a list at…
Jimmy and the chocolate factory
One Aldwych, an Edwardian grand hotel near Waterloo Bridge, is serving a Jimmy Savile tribute tea. It is not explicitly…
Self-whipping
Isabel Hardman of this parish explained after last week’s government defeat that a deluded theory among the party leadership had…
