Miscellaneous

Saturday

Doc

2440: Dizzy tiny blonde

The unclued lights (as four pairs and a singleton which includes an abbreviation and apostrophe) are of a kind. 36 is an acronym and 10 includes an accent. Solvers should highlight a further themed title of two words hidden separately in the final grid.   Across 1    Sheriff’s officer’s wild spat during argument (8) 12    Land on tree; mother has pronounced dead first (10, two words) 13    English work about wing flap (6) 14    24 change of heart for this bishop (7) 15    Girl in The Crown that’s on her knees (8) 18    Pair paid the bill on both legs? (9, hyphened) 19    Former PM presenter with sound of whirling

Lucy Vickery

You must remember this

In Competition No. 3131 you were invited to submit a poem beginning ‘Yes. I remember…’ This challenge was suggested by a reader who was very taken with Adrian Bailey’s poem ‘First Love’, a riff on Edward Thomas’s much-loved ‘Adlestrop’, published recently in this magazine. The winners, in an entry that provided a bracing blast of new year nostalgia, earn £25 each. Yes, I remember Germolene — the densely-pink tinned-salmon hue, its smell, round tin, unwonted gloss like warm and antiseptic glue. It soothed each graze from roller skates. Those tumbles from the playground swings? — anaesthetised. It smelt of care, did Germolene. And other things. One of the family: its

Luke McShane

no. 587

Sanguineti–Najdorf, Mar del Plata 1956. White to move. White played 1 Kd8?, to threaten 2 Qe7#. Black resigned, overlooking 1…Rxg4 to prepare Ke6-f5. White should have chosen a queen check instead. Which one? Answers by Tuesday 21 January to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator or victoria@-spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.   Last week’s solution 1 Rxh7+! Kxh7 2 Qh5+ Kg8 3 Ne7 mate. Last week’s winner Gareth Davies, Newport

Luke McShane

12 rules for chess

As backhanded Christmas gifts go, a copy of 12 Rules for Life, must be up there with wrinkle cream or a nose-hair trimmer. One generous soul decided that Jordan Peterson’s bracing self-help book, published two years ago, was just the tonic I need to improve my life and character.   Who knows what advice to take, when feedback from the game of life is so wickedly fuzzy? Most decisions are inconsequential, and some which look good will come back to haunt you. But in the game of kings, results are unambiguous: win, lose or draw, and then you get reincarnated. So in the spirit of January resolutions, this is how those

Janet de Botton

Bridge 18 January 2020

2019 was a big year for Alex Hydes. HUGE in fact. He won, almost consecutively, three major international titles and several lesser ones. On top of that he and Ben Handley-Pritchard have just qualified to play for England in the Europeans in June. No wonder he’s in such demand. I have just returned from Edinburgh where we played the first weekend of the Camrose and Alex was billeted in to take the place of Espen Erichsen who is in Oz. Scoring up with him is a real pleasure! We finished the weekend 24 VPs ahead of 2nd (Ireland) — a perfect start for the second weekend coming up next month.

Saturday

Mary Killen

Dear Mary | 21 July 2012

Q. This autumn I will be studying in Paris. A friend from Italy will also be studying there and she wants us to share a flat. She is amazing and I worship her but, the problem is that I need to be alone first thing in the morning — and she wants to talk. The truth, ridiculous or not, is that if I can’t have my mental privacy at this time, I am much less productive. Although she knows how I feel, whenever we have stayed the night under the same roof, the moment I put a foot out of bed she somehow knows and comes into my room talking.