It’s hard to explain to non-bridge players how much the game means to some of us. It’s not just a pastime; it’s a grand passion. Janet de Botton summed it up well when someone asked her if she really loved the game. ‘I don’t love it,’ she replied, ‘I’m in love with it.’ Ask any
White to play. This position is from Kramnik-Kasparov, World Championship, London (Game 2) 2000. Kasparov has been struggling to hold a difficult endgame, a pawn down and has now just blundered. How did Kramnik finish off? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 8 January or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on
The National Gallery is limiting itself to two major shows a year in the Sainsbury Wing. The spring exhibition is Barocci: Brilliance and Grace (27 February to 19 May), the first major showing of Federico Barocci (1535–1612), who managed to fuse Venetian colour with the sense of drawing and pictorial design favoured in Central Italy.
The Seacole empire Education Secretary Michael Gove says he wants to rewrite the national curriculum in history to concentrate on figures such as Cromwell and Churchill instead of Mary Seacole. Some institutions which have been named after Seacole in recent years: — Mary Seacole House, ‘mental health drop-in centre primarily for black and ethnic communities
Caught in the ratchet Sir: Melissa Kite (‘Hunting for Dave’, 29 December) wonders why the Prime Minister won’t reopen the question of hunting. Is it not just possible that the reason given is the real reason — he knows he could not win a vote on it? There is no point in leading the troops
Q. I have had the misfortune to have broken my foot and was packed off by my GP to a clinic in Vincent Square for an X-ray. The male receptionist kindly arranged a taxi and gave me £2 when I told him I might be just short of the fare. I assured him that I
I am re-reading D.H. Lawrence’s Sea and Sardinia. The opening line runs: ‘Comes over one an absolute necessity to move…’ He expands on the dilemma (I paraphrase): you are afflicted by wanderlust, you want to move, you don’t have any money, you’ve only recently moved but for some reason you want to move again. It
Like many, I have just read The Hobbit again, which I hadn’t done since reading it to Veronica as a girl. Even when solemn, Tolkien knows what he is doing with language. It was at his most relaxed that he could be careless, as in the early pages where he too often repeats dreadful (in
I’m currently in Kenya with my family where I’m planning to stay for the next seven weeks. The official reason is to help my friend Aidan Hartley set up a primary school in Laikipia, but I have another, less pious motive. Last June, Aidan arranged for me to give a speech at Pembroke, his children’s
‘The rain is ever falling, drip, drip, drip, by day and night… The weather is so very bad, down in Lincolnshire, that the liveliest imagination can scarcely apprehend its ever being fine again.’ That is Dickens in the 1850s (Bleak House). It is a similar story here in Sussex as the year 2013 comes in.
Justin Welby, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, may have to confront this year the possible break-up of the world-wide Anglican communion. Perhaps the splendid letter from Seneca the Younger (AD 1-65), sketching a pagan take on religious feeling, will suggest a way ahead. After discussing the divine spirit ‘which guards us and watches us in
There is something about the dying embers of a year which causes the world to concentrate on entirely the wrong story. In the last days of 1999 many were fixated on the so-called ‘millennium bug’ rather than on the real computing crisis: the absurd over-valuations of internet companies which was soon to lead to stock
Home On the eve of a speech by David Cameron, the Prime Minister, on the EU, Andrew Duff MEP, the leader of the Union of European Federalists, suggested that Britain could be offered second-class ‘associate member’ status in the EU. ‘If the British cannot support the trend towards more integration in Europe,’ Jacques Delors, the
Definitions in ten clues are a letter down; missing letters, in clue order, spell out the creator of one unclued light (three words) which defines the other seven (including one hyphened). Elsewhere, ignore one accent. Across 1 Chap started to mine free ores, developing alloy (14, hyphened) 10 From Austria, backless seat
Answers to clues in italics are pie (13), as (15), unled (22) and heel (27). In each case it is necessary to PUT IN AN APPEARANCE (32 10) to create the grid entry. Definitions of thematic entries are 3, 16, 40 and 12. First prize Belinda Bridgen, London NW8 Runners-up A.L. James, Winchester, Hants; P.J.W.
One thing is already apparent about the Tories’ 2015 campaign, it will be even more dependent on David Cameron than the 2010 one was. Why, because as Anthony Wells points out again today, Cameron polls ahead of his party. There’ll be those who criticise this decision. They’ll point out that the big billboard posters of
The dilemma over drones continues today with the announcement that a leading Taliban figure, Mullah Nazir, was killed earlier this morning. Public opinion in Pakistan is deeply hostile to such attacks even when militants are killed because of the perceived cost to civilians. Scores have been incorrectly identified as hostile jihadists and targeted as a
‘Stormin’ Norman’ Schwarzkopf was a formidable figure: formidable in size, in his fearsome temper—and as a genius in the art of war. I first met the General in Oman a few weeks before the unleashing of the First Gulf War of 1990, where he commanded a remarkable array of coalition forces, including Egyptians and Syrians.
Justine Greening is a robust politician and bean counter who reportedly used extremely fruity language when told she was being reshuffled to the International Development Department. Even though the new Secretary of State has made a strong start in her role, announcing the end of Britain’s aid programme to India by 2015 and suspending bilateral
