I don’t play rubber bridge nearly as much as I used to, but I still enjoy the occasional game at TGR’s. The stakes normally range from £10 to £30 per hundred. Although I play at the lower end, it’s still a nerve-racking amount, especially when cutting into a game with top-class regulars like Gunnar Hallberg
The 140th edition of the Varsity Match took place last month at the Royal Automobile Club in London’s Pall Mall. This one was as tense as they come: Cambridge grabbed an early point, but Oxford built a significant lead by winning the next three. On the four boards which remained, Oxford’s situation looked precarious, so
White to play and mate in two. Philip Hamilton Williams, Birmingham News, 1897. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 4 April. 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 Rd4+!
In Competition No. 3242, you were asked to submit a short story that is a mash-up of cli-fi with a genre of your choice. In his 2016 book The Great Derangement, the Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh questioned why ‘climate change cast a much smaller shadow on literature than it does on the world’. Six years
Doc writes: This is Columba’s last puzzle for The Spectator which we are pleased to publish now, three years after he retired from the series. One unclued light is the surname of the author of a novel whose title (two words) is hidden in the grid. Each word of this title has two synonyms among
NICOLAS POUSSIN painted ET IN ARCADIA EGO and A DANCE TO THE MUSIC OF TIME. The latter inspired ANTHONY POWELL, whose novel sequence of the same name introduced the egregious Kenneth WIDMERPOOL. First prize Gill Wayne, London SW9 Runners-up Storm Hutchinson, Dulas, Anglesey; Alison Latham, Pinkneys Green, Berkshire
