A friend told me (no, honestly — it was a friend) that she had had a dream from which she awoke screaming abuse and practising kick-boxing on her (no longer) boyfriend’s sleeping head. ‘What was the dream?’ I, her awestruck audience, gasped. Well — it turned out that said boyfriend’s ex-wife had told him that
The indefatigable Michael Basman continues to identify future chess superstars with his annual Delancey UK Schools Chess Challenge for schoolchildren. Eight-year-old Alex Golding won an astounding £1,000 prize in the most recent edition of the challenge, which attracts a world record entry of 60,000 every year. Brandon Clarke emerged as the overall winner of the
In Competition No. 2763 you were invited to submit a poem that is composed of lines taken from well-known poems, with no more than one line taken from any single poem. This was a brute of a challenge, but it did pull in the crowds. Semi-nonsense was fine as long as it was amusing but
Each of twenty-one definitions contains one misprinted letter. Corrections of misprints spell two items of the same kind as the unclued lights. Two unclued lights consist of two words each. Across 1 Visits made by guys (5) 9 Bearers of nominal offices in knots about strange ritual (10) 11 Scrape
Extra letters in jumbles, plus INITIALS (37) of clues, give the saying ‘Where the carcase is, there shall the eagles be gathered together’. The carcase in the grid is a MORKIN, accounting for the presence of six eagles. First prize Mark Rowntree, London SE10 Runners-up C.V. Clark, London WC1; M.F. O’Brien, London N12
White to play. This position is from Akshaya Kalaiyalahan-Callum Brewer, UK Schools Challenge 2012. White concluded this game with an extraordinary tactic. What did she play? Answers to me at The Spectator by Tuesday 18 September or via email to victoria@spectator.co.uk or by fax on 020 7681 3773. The winner will be the first correct
