White to play. Giri-Praggnanandhaa, Chessable Masters 2022. A game from the preliminary stages. What did Giri play to induce resignation? Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 6 June. 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…Qe2! If 2 Rxe2 Rb1+ 3 Bf1 Rxf1 mate Last week’s winner Ashley Murphy-Elliott, Oakworth, W. Yorks
Ding Liren took first place at last month’s Chessable Masters, the fourth event in the 2022 Meltwater Champions Tour. But it was his defeated opponent in the final, 16-year-old Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa from India, who stole the show. The teenager’s reputation is already well established, and he made headlines in the (non-chess) media in February when he beat Magnus Carlsen in a rapid game at the Airthings Masters, the first event in the tour. Remarkably, at the Chessable Masters, he added a second victory over Carlsen, who blundered in an almost even position in their game from the preliminary stage. Even more impressive were the scalps he took in the knockout
‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,’ groans a weary Al Pacino in The Godfather III. This is what it feels like being in/out (I’m not sure which) of the Sex Pistols. Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle has filmed a six-part drama about the life and crimes of my childhood buddy and Pistols guitar hero Steve Jones, based on his autobiography Lonely Boy. So, here we go again with endless rounds of interviews, with such profound questions as, what was Sid/Malcolm really like? Why is Johnny so angry? Will you ever play again? No! First off, it’s New York for the drama’s US premiere, courtesy of
Long before domestic woes and an inferno at Windsor had prompted the Queen to describe 1992 as her ‘annus horribilis’, she had a very frank discussion with her prime minister, John Major. On this particular matter, she made it clear that she was not interested in ministerial advice. Her mind was made up. She had decided to pay income tax. For the best part of two years, through war in the Gulf and a recession, sections of the media had been painting a picture of a spoiled, profligate royal family carrying on without a care. Every long-range snap of a shooting party or of the Duchess of York on another
What a privilege the other night to see Rob Burrow, the Rugby League legend, win Autobiography of the Year at the Sports Book Awards at the Oval. Burrow is one of the most successful players in the history of League, although only 5ft 5in and less than 11 stone in a sport populated by big men battering each other. Now he is confined to a wheelchair, ravaged by motor neurone disease, yet radiating huge warmth with a permanent wide smile. He was greeted with a long standing ovation, and made a moving speech using an eye-activated computer device with his own voice. Sportspeople do not have to be the best
In honour of Her Majesty the Queen’s awe-inspiring Platinum Jubilee, I have not one but two hands, illustrating the power of pre-empts – even when they are psyches! Did I mention we got knocked out of the Schapiro Spring Foursomes by one IMP? Playing the last eight boards of 32 we went in 36 IMPs ahead and emerged having lost 37! Richard Plackett, playing with Espen Erichsen for team Orca, picked up the following hand on the very last board: ♠x/♥Q 10 9 x/◆ xxx/♣Q J 10 9 5 and opened… 3♣! David Bakhshi, with his flat 20 count and double stopper in Clubs, overcalled game in NTs which, very
On the BOAC VC10 flights to Nairobi, the pilots would invite children like me up to sit in the cockpit with them. Once they put me behind the controls and I was very nervous about making a wrong move that could throw us into a tailspin. I had a BOAC badge and a Junior Jet Club book, which the captain kindly signed for me on each voyage. Attractive stewardesses served breakfast, lunch and supper with metal cutlery, the seats were huge with loads of legroom for tall men and the adults puffed away on cigarettes. The cabin was ultra-quiet because the four big Rolls-Royce engines were in the tail, rather
If you want to understand Surrey, look at the house names. Keepers’ Copse, Meadow View, Weavers, Highfields… What do all these names have in common? They describe something rural that used to be there before it was destroyed to make way for the house named after it. Surrey is where London will one day join Guildford and Woking, making the outer banlieues of our capital city very nice indeed, but obviously destroying the countryside that makes Surrey nice in the process. So not all that nice, in fact. For now, it amuses me to drive along the lanes of chintzy villages in prime commuter belt, grimacing at the names of
New York Prince Pavlos, heir to the Greek throne, turned 55 recently and I threw a small dinner for him. Pavlos is a hell of a prince, father, husband and businessman. He’s tall, good-looking, a gent in every way, intelligent, hard-working and has never put a foot wrong. Neither has any member of his immediate family. Compared with them, the rest of European royals seem wanting, but then I’m prejudiced. The Greek royals are Danes, and the oldest reigning clan of Europe. Unlike another royal family whose name escapes me – it is the Platinum Jubilee issue after all – the Hellenic one has had no divorces, no scandals, and
In Competition No. 3251, you were invited to submit a poem to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee in the style of a poet present or past. Perhaps inspired by the lines written by William McGonagall to mark the death of his beloved Queen Victoria – Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead,/And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled… – several competitors, including G.M. Southgate, Jerry Emery and Ewan Brown, imagined the Bard of Dundee paying tribute to Her Majesty. And top of the pops among the poets laureate was John Betjeman. In a smallish but well-made and jolly entry, Mark Bellis, Ian Barker and Janine Beacham
When did student radicals become so pathetic? There’s a lot of talk – often rightly so – of how sinister woke student activism can be today. Think balaclava-clad blokes protesting against Kathleen Stock at the University of Sussex over her alleged ‘transphobia’ – that is, her heretical belief in biological sex. Or students at Essex University condemning gender-critical academic Jo Phoenix and proclaiming in a flyer ‘SHUT THE F**K UP TERF’ next to an image of a gun. But much of the censorious agitation that goes on on campuses today is often just embarrassing – the wail of entitled, overgrown infants afraid of hurty words. Events at the University of
James looks nothing like Johnny Depp. For one thing, he is a lot taller than the 5 foot 8 star; and unlike Depp, he doesn’t sport 37 tattoos. But James identifies with much the Pirate of the Caribbean star is telling the court in Virginia (and the millions following proceedings through social media). The first time James was attacked by his wife, he convinced himself it was a one-off. They had had a row over the quality of a meal they’d shared at the local restaurant. Suddenly his wife rushed at him, battering him with her fists. He was shocked, but thought she must have drunk too much. He caught her hands
For saying that teachers shouldn’t pander to trans pupils, Suella Braverman has found herself in hot water. The Attorney General suggested in an interview with the Times that male pupils should not be able to use girls’ toilets, and that single-sex schools can indeed restrict admission to children of just one sex. These are hardly revolutionary ideas, but they appear to have upset the National Education Union. Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the NEU, took just a few hours to respond to Braverman: ‘Discrimination against transgender pupils is illegal under 2010 Equalities Act,’ she warned, adding that: ‘Schools should ignore the misleading advice from the Attorney General and
Stella Creasy thinks that trans-women are women and should be treated as such. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, the Labour MP said: ‘Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes, but they are now women and I respect that.’ Yet what was left unspoken is the fear among those of us who were born female about what this means for women’s rights. Creasy supports self-identification because she thinks it’s ‘bonkers’ that a man who wishes to be legally recognised as a woman has to have the backing of two doctors. But what is ‘bonkers’ is the risk that single-sex spaces, such as prisons, changing rooms, hospital
25 min listen
My guest on Holy Smoke this week is, many people believe, a victim of the intolerant progressive ideology currently gripping the Church of England. He’s Calvin Robinson, a name possibly familiar to you from the row over the Diocese of London’s decision not to ordain him. Calvin is a young TV presenter with conservative Christian views that conflict with the liberal opinions of the hierarchy. He’s been told they are too divisive – which is a bit rich coming from an organisation whose senior bishops routinely express opinions far to the left of those of the average churchgoer. Particular offence was caused by his insistence that the C of E isn’t
It may not be much consolation to those Liverpool fans who were caught up in the chaos at the Stade de France on Saturday evening, but Marine Le Pen is on their side. In a television interview on Sunday the leader of the National Rally described events at the Champions League final between Liverpool and Real Madrid as a ‘humiliation’ for France, and she scoffed at the suggestion that English fans were to blame. That was the claim made on Saturday evening by France’s Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, who, as tear gas still hung in the air around the country’s national stadium, tweeted his praise for the police and his
I regret to inform you that your kitten heels and morning suits will probably not be seeing service this wedding season: once again, marriage rates are down. In fact, this year the rate for heterosexual marriages is the lowest on record. What’s more, fewer than one in five of these marriage ceremonies are religious, in keeping with a downward trend of several decades standing. As a wedding guest, I slightly regret this turn towards the civil ceremony, only because the secular liturgy is so oddly anaemic. Seeing someone from the local council officiate on this most solemn of occasions, I can’t help but be reminded of the Simpsons episode in
Conservatism used to look to the individual, and just as importantly, to the family to cure society’s ills. That no longer seems to be the case. This week Rishi Sunak’s energy package for struggling households saw wealthy pensioners benefit the most, while those with large families and children lost out. At present the whole tax system is rigged against traditional two parent families, particularly those who get married. Recent analysis conducted by economists at the campaigning outfit, Tax and the Family, found that a couple with two children need to earn more than twice as much as a single childless person to achieve even a basic standard of living. The
Vladimir Putin has never been completely clear about his war aims. But he gives clues. He endlessly talks of the brotherhood of Russians and Ukrainians – and in this relationship he always puts Russia first. In Ukraine he wants Russian language schooling to be restored and he of course wishes to annex more Ukrainian territory. He would like Russian businesses to receive privileged access and for Ukraine to be barred from having an independent foreign and security policy. In other words, he wishes to pursue ‘Russification’. Russification is an objective that has taken changing forms over the centuries. Under the Russian Empire, the tsars saw Ukraine as a problem as