The Spectator: 15 December 2012
15 December 2012
At the end of the carol service, the vicar invited us to stay for a cup of tea and a mince pie, to be served at the back of the… Read more
15 December 2012
Shortly after rekindling my relationship with the builder boyfriend, I had another hair-brained scheme. I brought the mad chestnut mare in from her retirement field thinking that while I’m U-turning… Read more
15 December 2012
I have a daughter called Freya, aged seven, who sometimes makes suggestions for this column but complains that I never take any notice of them. In particular, she is cross… Read more
15 December 2012
Gilgil, Kenya Pembroke House, our children’s school, is a little slice of England set in Kenya’s Rift Valley. In the shadow of extinct volcanoes they play cricket on extensive grounds.… Read more
National loyalty
‘The Grand National is a great race,’ one of Britain’s most respected racecourse chiefs told me over lunch the other day, ‘but in 2013 we’ll all be watching it from… Read more
The answers
Weird world 1 Mark Rothko’s 2 George Washington 3 Nadine Dorries 4 The Duchess of Cornwall 5 Sakhalin 6 The 158th Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race 7 Harry Redknapp, when… Read more
15 December 2012
At a dinner party recently, I was asked whether men and women are equally good at bridge. Not at the very highest level, I replied. If you were to name… Read more
London greats
This Christmas and New Year I am publishing a series of tributes to players in great London games. This week, examples of play by Capablanca, who won the great tournament… Read more
What the donkey saw
In Competition No. 2776 you were invited to supply a poem reflecting on the Nativity written from the point of view of the donkey or the ox who (according to… Read more
Xmas Spectator
2A, 118, 1 and 19 (three of five words and one of three, ignore two apostrophes) are of a kind. The first word of a further example sounds like what… Read more
2090: Precipitate
HAL DAVID (15) and ANDY WILLIAMS (12/19) died on the 1st and 25th September 2012. The former produced the LYRICS (29) of the OSCAR (4)-winning song ‘RAINDROPS KEEP FALLIN’ ON… Read more
In praise of inventors – and visionaries too
The award for the most hideous TV moment of 2012 goes to NBC — and their coverage of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. ‘Apparently there’s going to be… Read more
Dickens and the profit motive
I’m writing this from a hotel room in Stockholm where I’ve been stranded for the last 24 hours thanks to bad weather. Turns out the Swedish airport authorities aren’t any… Read more
A glorious embarrassment of riches
So those really were the days of miracle and wonder, the time of times, or any other lyric you might care to think of. 2012 — never has a year… Read more
Tanya Gold reviews the Orient-Express
The British Pullman on platform 1 at Victoria station looks mad, because it is 9 a.m. and ugly British commuters are running around, looking wracked and unhappy, like extras from Les Misérables,… Read more
‘Everything goes dead mad’: the strange world of sportspeak
What tense shall we use? That’s the first question autobiographers must settle. The historic present might convey a sense of immediacy. ‘I’m just one race away from becoming an Olympic… Read more
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