Miscellaneous

Saturday

Luke McShane

Peasants’ revolt

The German word for pawn, ‘bauer’, can also be translated as peasant, or farmer. There are many spectacular games in which the pawns pick up their pitchforks and overrun the landed gentry. A historic example, played in 1834, is the game McDonnell–de La Bourdonnais, in which the Frenchman playing Black advanced his pawns to d2, e2 and f2, overwhelming White’s rook and queen. A modern example is the game Saric–Suleymanli, which I wrote about in December last year. Aydin Suleymanli, just 14 years old from Azerbaijan, acquitted himself well but eventually succumbed to the advancing horde. Much less gets written about failed uprisings, but in this week’s game Suleymanli found

Smurf

2447: No small matter

One clued light can be associated with ten unclued ones. Ignore accents. One solution is an IVR. Across 4 Thrills if Leicester is rebuilt (11)11 A guy inside upset funny Shakespearean philosopher (9)13 European articles on new growth – fails to hit target (11)14 Jar in school laboratory (4)15 ‘Parking no good’ – sign on Port Moresby vehicle (3)18 This could be spent anywhere except Hungary (7, two words)19 Chap comes back in new suit, gets big wave (7)22 A shirt tailored for goddess (6)23 Row about note given by particular bell (6)27 Agree to embark (5, two words)29 Steaks sent back, possessing offensive odour (6, hyphened)34 Every motoring organisation

Luke McShane

No. 594

Black to play. Puranik–Sjugirov, another spectacular game played at the Aeroflot Open. Puranik was perhaps counting on 1…Rc1 2 Qa3 Bd2 3 Qb2! threatening mate on g7. Sjugirov found a much more powerful move. What was it? Answers to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator by Tuesday 10 March or via email to victoria@-spectator.co.uk. There is a prize of £20 for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address. Last week’s solution 1 Re8+! Rxe8 2 bxa5 Rxc4 3 Kxc4 with a winning endgameLast week’s winner Ilya Iyengar, Amersham, Bucks

Susanna Gross

Bridge | 07 March 2020

I love the French expression esprit de l’escalier (‘wit of the staircase’); it perfectly captures that moment of frustration when a clever remark or retort comes to us just too late — as we’re leaving, or on the stairs. I’ve always thought there should be some equivalent expression in bridge: how often do we realise in a flash — once a hand is over, naturally — that we should have taken a different line? But I found myself wishing for yet another term of regret the other day: one to describe the even more frustrating experience of knowing you actually had the right thought at the right time, and yet

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Britain’s economic fate doesn’t depend on Heathrow

Hit-and-miss, heavy-handed, but a necessary use of justice to deter repetition. That was my summing-up, last year, of the Serious Fraud Office’s probe into the Libor and Euribor scandal, in which just nine low-ranking traders from four banks were convicted, despite evidence that rate-fixing malpractice had been endemic throughout the money markets for years. In the case of the SFO’s inquiry into the controversial capital–raising that enabled Barclays to escape a taxpayer bailout in 2008, the summary has to be ‘miss-and-miss, heavier-handed than ever’. But still I ask: was it worthwhile as a warning to others? The nub of the case was the payment to Qatari investors, to secure their

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: lines on a young lady’s Instagram

In Competition No. 3138 you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘Lines on a Young Lady’s Instagram’. Thanks to David Jones, who suggested this challenge, a nod to Philip Larkin’s 1953 ‘Lines on a Young Lady’s Photograph Album’ from the collection The Less Deceived (‘My swivel eye hungers from pose to pose —/ In pigtails, clutching a reluctant cat;/ Or furred yourself, a sweet girl–graduate…’). There were echoes of Larkin-esque perviness in the entry, and stalkerish voyeurism, too, courtesy of Nick Syrett’s twist on Betjeman’s ‘A Subaltern’s Love Song’, which appears below. The witty and accomplished winners earn £25 each. At last your smart account accepted me,A newbie in

The Spectator

2444: Ones in the country solution

The unclued answers are all words inChambers, having their origin in Indonesia (clued by wordplay in the title). First prize Kailash Vernalls, Thame, OxonRunners-up Paul Davies, Reading, Berks; Mrs J. Smith, Beeston, Norfolk

Saturday

Luke McShane

Increment and excrement

The science-fiction writer Douglas Adams ridiculed our primitive species for considering digital watches to be ‘a pretty neat idea’. Digital chess clocks really are pretty neat, because they enable modern competitive games to be played with an ‘increment’. For each move played, you earn extra seconds to make the next one, a simple innovation which allows all games to reach a natural conclusion. (By contrast, analogue clocks allot a tranche of thinking time for a series of moves). A lack of increment on the clock occasionally makes for excrement on the board; bashing out 20 moves in five remaining seconds may be physically impossible, but that never stops people trying.

Luke McShane

No. 593

White to play, a variation from McShane–-Kamsky. In the game above, I was hoping to see 31…Qa5, as I had spotted an opportunity to turn the tables completely. What is White’s next move? Answers should be sent to ‘Chess’ at The Spectator by Tuesday 3 March or via email to 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…Rd5! threatens …Qd1 mate and 2 Qxd5 Nf4+ picks up the queen.Last week’s winner Emmet Clarke, London E11

Doc

2446: Spring time

Each clue defines the full solution to which the letter-count refers. However, the cryptic wordplay leads to the grid entry, after one letter has been omitted each time it appears in the full solution. The omitted letters in clue order reveal a relevant timely phrase which solvers should include with their entry. Across 1 Helped top-class lad (8) 4 150 sects accepting alternative maths aids (11) 10 Any reply sorted about church theft? (12, two words) 11 Eccentric fellow returns the French novel (7) 12 Sit astride stump (8) 14 Tooth-shaped, partly bent, oily (7) 15 Hired jeans regularly provide fabric (6) 16 Holes in English slab overturned (7) 22

The Spectator

2443: Middle of the road solution

Each unclued light is a genus name of a TREE (i.e. ‘middle of the road’ = (s)TREE(t)). Cornus was also allowed at 2 Down.First prize John Honey, SurbitonRunners-up Ben Stephenson, London SW12; D. Page, Orpington

Lucy Vickery

No. 3137: By George

In Competition No. 3137, to mark the 70th anniversary of George Orwell’s death, you were invited to submit a short story with an Orwellian flavour. This challenge was inspired by an entertaining thread on Twitter started by @-rcolvile, who asked for ideas for sequels or spin-offs when Orwell’s work goes out of copyright next January. Among the suggestions that elicited the most ‘likes’ were @NickTyrone’s ‘a sequel to Animal Farm in which all the non-pig animals console themselves with the idea that at least they “won the argument”.’ An honourable mention goes to Nick MacKinnon, whose twist on Nineteen Eight-Four sees Winston consigned to a Room 101 that is the

Wednesday

Janet de Botton

Bridge 29 February 2020

Bridge experts are a lovely lot. They give their time freely and generously to encourage and teach students and bring bridge to a wider, young audience. Prof Sam(antha) Punch organised a terrific pro/am event last week for 76 pairs and raised more than £50k for her Keep Bridge Alive charity.   The Young Chelsea BC is launching a major drive to recruit young players by offering to teach bridge to every student in London — all 375,000 of them! Bright young stars India Leeming (who is running the YC youth initiative) and Shazaad Natt are organising a teaching weekend, and up at Acol Stefan Skorchev ran his annual Invitational Pairs

Saturday

Luke McShane

Confidence tricks

Three consecutive losses in a tournament is dryly termed ‘castling queenside’, in reference to the chess notation for that move (0-0-0). Carissa Yip went one worse, starting with four demoralising zeros at the Cairns Cup in St Louis this month. The 16-year-old American was the lowest ranked player in the elite women’s all-play-all tournament, so it wasn’t about to get any easier, and her experienced opponents were surely looking to capitalise. In the fifth round, she bounced back in style with a win over seven-time US women’s champion Irina Krush. ‘Someone told me that I should just fake it till I make it,’ Yip explained after the game. Those were

Susanna Gross

Bridge 22 February 2020

I’d love to be a fly on the wall when the Rimstedts and their children get together over supper. One thing’s for sure: when the discussion turns to bridge, no other family in the world could match them. The parents, Magnus and Ann Rimstedt, are well-known Swedish players; they imparted their love of the game to their eldest two children, Cecilia and Sandra, when the girls were growing up in the small village of Halmstad. Both women are now celebrated internationals, in particular Cecilia, 31, who last year won the European women’s championship. The sisters, in turn, taught their younger twin brothers when they were just five. You may have

The Spectator

Britain is booming – despite Brexit

After the vote for Brexit, it was often said that our departure from the EU was most likely to harm the very people who voted for it: the industrial workers of the Midlands and North. Didn’t they know that a vote for Brexit would, in itself, lead to 500,000 more job losses? Couldn’t they see that Nissan was bound to wind down its operations in Sunderland and move business to mainland Europe? Almost four years on, it’s safe to say that most of the economic doom-mongering was nonsense. This week’s figures on jobs and earnings show that, since the referendum, employment is up by one million — and it is

Lucy Vickery

3136: Love me don't

In Competition No. 3136 you were invited to submit a lonely hearts ad guaranteed to send those looking for love running in the opposite direction. This assignment was a nod to the charmingly idiosyncratic personal ads that have appeared over the years in the London Review of Books — ‘They call me Naughty Lola. Run-of-the-mill beardy physicist (M, 46)’; ‘I like my women the way I like my kebab. Found by surprise after a drunken night out and covered in too much tahini’ — which proved such a hit that they’ve been collected in two volumes. In an entry where the flatulent rubbed dandruff-sprinkled shoulders with the gout-ridden and the

The Spectator

2442: Don’t nod solution

ROTAVATOR (4A), NAURUAN (12), DEED (25), DEIFIED (36), MALAYALAM (39), REIFIER (4D), TERRET (15D), and REPAPER (18) are palindromes as is 2442, the NUMBER (3) of the PUZZLE (30), and its title. First prize Neil Mendoza, OxfordRunners-up Duncan Milroy, East Molesey, Surrey, Alison Latham, London EC1R

Lavatch

2445: In other words II

41, 1A, 10 (seven words in total) is a description of a phenomenon. Remaining unclued lights, including one of two words and three of three words, either singly, paired or as a trio, form four examples of this phenomenon. All are confirmed in the ODQ (8th ed.) Across 11 Leaf parts of liana ice destroyed (8)12 Agreed drug hidden in grass must return (4)13 Fish, internally cold and blue (4)14 Split lip — scare for breathing orifice (8)16 African statesman’s vengeance on criminals (6)18 It’s complete in French flag (6)20 With hi-hat, Mary’s beaten uneven beat (9)21 In trouble, on digging into posh spread (7, three words)22 After dessert, king’s

Wednesday

Spectator Club

Highlighted Restaurant of the month from The Luxury Restaurant Guide

Moncks lies in the beating heart of Mayfair and its myriad of art galleries, high-fashion and businesses. Explore a small part of Mayfair’s history. The idea behind Moncks of Dover St is simple, to create a great neighbourhood restaurant and bar in the heart of one of the world’s most prestigious locales. It serves time-honoured classic dishes using the finest produce, so that something seemingly simple is satisfying and delicious. Spectator Members offer : Members and their guests receive a complimentary Butler’s Tipple signature cocktail on arrival, when ordering a minimum two courses per person. Offer valid : For lunch and dinner from midday to 10pm Simply click here to be