Miscellaneous

Roganic first opened in 2011 in Marylebone as a two-year pop-up. Five years later Roganic returned to London, bringing elements of L’Enclume, Simon Rogan’s two Michelin star restaurant in the Lake District – Roganic now holds four AA Rosettes and was awarded its first Michelin star in 2018 after only ten months of opening. Chef Patron Simon Rogan reigns supreme for his unmatched quality and craftsmanship and is noted as one of the most innovative and exciting chef’s around. Forward-thinking and imaginative, expect only the freshest and most exceptional array of produce from the countries best suppliers, including Simon’s ‘Our Farm’ in the Lake District. ‍Spectator Members offer : Members

Today The Spectator launches a new website, designed to showcase its world-class journalism, popular podcast channels and 24/7 news coverage and commentary. The website has been designed in advance of our 10,000th issue, as The Spectator – the oldest magazine in the word – becomes the first publication in history to reach this milestone The issue, which goes on sale on 23 April – St George’s Day – will look back on our 192-year history as well as mark the start of a new digital era. The website’s redesign pays tribute to the print magazine, while modernising our look and feel to showcase the variety of what The Spectator produces.

In the 1800s, several chess matches were conducted by telegraph. Modern technology ought to make long-distance matches easier than ever, but in fact competitive international chess is almost always played in person these days. That is partly because it is impossible to police computer-assisted cheating if the players play at home. But equally, the practical barriers to travel are (usually) much fewer in the modern age. But prominent chess players (especially in the days of the USSR) have often had to negotiate political obstacles. Shohreh Bayat, from Iran, was in Shanghai in January for the first leg of the Women’s World Championship, where she was the chief arbiter — one

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

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.