I am sure that readers of this column need no introduction to Victor Mollo’s most famous creation, The Hideous Hog. Bridge in the Menagerie was first published in 1965 and today, Mollo’s stereotypes are as sharp and apposite as they were 60 years ago. And don’t think (as I did) that hogging is an exclusively
The best of Aesop’s fables is the one in which the Wind and the Sun compete to remove the coat from a passing man. The Wind goes first, assaulting the man with full force, but the harder it blows, the tighter the man grips his coat. When the Sun takes a turn, it radiates such
White to play and mate in two moves. Composed by William Shinkman, The Good Companion, 1919. Email answers to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 31 March. There is a prize of a £20 John Lewis voucher for the first correct answer out of a hat. Please include a postal address and allow six weeks for prize delivery.
Comp. 3392 invited you to write ‘The Curse of King Thut’ (in poetry or prose) in response to the discovery of the tomb of the pharaoh Thutmose II, the first such since Tutankhamun’s. There were many imaginative curses, from the archaeologist Artemis Spendlove Jr’s tinnitus (Mark Ambrose) to the contents of the tomb turning out
The unclued lights are of a kind. Across 12 Sun ruined helter-skelter without cover (9) 13 Lizard found in Wagamama! (5) 15 Screen role I transformed into (9) 16 Rabbit’s discovered in delay at terminus (6) 20 Quietly thatched house and made watertight (7) 21 Oddly, his leg is pulled by Cupid! (6) 22 Location
The unclued lights were odes by Keats and Shelley. The title could sound like ‘Some Addresses’. First prize Peter Wreford, Cambridge Runners-up Angela Tebbutt, West Caister, Norfolk; Anthony Harker, Oxford
