Young blood
Dominic Cooke did it at the Royal Court. Now Ed Hall is having crack as well. Cooke’s crazy decision to…
North stars
Siegfried is, everyone agrees, the hardest of the Ring dramas to bring off. The first and almost insurmountable problem is…
Dark pleasures
Luther is back, in Luther, and so is Donny Osmond, of Donny & Marie fame. Could there be two more…
Touching the void
One morning in 1995 Tara Bariana walked out of his house in Walsall and didn’t stop walking until he had…
The man who saw further
Alan Turing, the man who developed the Enigma code that saved the Allied war effort, was not merely disregarded by…
High life
The long lazy summer is upon us, and as I walk the Swiss hills below the mountain ranges my thoughts…
Low life
Sir Francis Drake died of dysentery while attacking the town of San Juan in Puerto Rico. He was buried at…
Real life
The sometime builder boyfriend spotted the Volvo on his way to a roofing job in Dorking. He rang me greatly…
Long life
I seem to have been steeped in opera lately. First there was Ariadne auf Naxos at Glyndebourne, then Peter Grimes…
Go, Johnny, go
Ginger Rogers, clever girl, did everything that Fred Astaire did — but she did it backwards. I am looking backwards…
Bridge
Zia Mahmood has never been the most punctual man — but I wonder whether he’ll ever be late for a…
Anand’s crisis
A disturbing pattern has emerged in the games of world champion Viswanathan Anand. As White in the Ruy Lopez he…
no. 273
Black to play. This position is from the game Nimzowitsch-Tarrasch, St Petersburg 1914. With both bishops trained on White’s king,…
Rhyme time
In Competition 2804 you were invited to supply a poem containing as many ingenious rhymes as possible. Ogden Nash, one…
2120: Urban – or what?
The unclued lights (one of two words) are of a specific kind. Ignore all accents. Across 1 H-E-X? (5)…
to 2117: Highlands and islands
The twenty-two lochs which did not fit into the grid are, in order of their appearance in the story: Ainort,…
Apple scrumping
Caroline and I were watching The Fall in our front room when the intruder entered our house. Not great timing…
This year, I’m hiring graduates with thirds
Whenever I return to my old university, I am always struck by how incredibly focused, purposeful and studious everyone seems…
Dear Mary
Q. Over the years my close friends locally have been giving each other birthday and Christmas presents. Now, as I…
Gillard and the Grange Hermitage
My Australian friend was in mourning over the removal of Julia Gillard, the country’s first female prime minister. She had…
Swathe
Swathe is a popular word at the moment, and ignorance of its meaning, spelling and pronunciation deters no one. It…
Diary
The phones have stopped ringing. It’s eerie and doesn’t feel right. The usual mischief-makers have stopped taking calls and answering…
Australian notes
There’s something irresistible about a philosopher who gives his recreations in Debrett’s as ‘wine, women and song’. Ken Minogue, who died last…
