The bridge world is coming back to life with a bang. The World Championships were held (live) in March, the Europeans in June, the Rosenblum Cup (transnational teams) is coming up in Poland mid-August, and tucked in between, the ACBL’s Summer National Spingold Teams, won by Pierre Zimmermann’s brand-new, unstained, all-singing, all-dancing, glittering team, who
On International Chess Day, 20 July, Magnus Carlsen announced that he will not defend his world championship title next year. The Norwegian won the title in 2013 by beating Viswanathan Anand in Chennai, and went on to defend his title against Anand once more, then Sergey Karjakin, Fabiano Caruana and most recently Ian Nepomniachtchi. Carlsen
White to play and mate in two. Composed by Henri Rinck, La Strategie, 1892. Answers should be emailed to chess@spectator.co.uk by Monday 2 August. 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
In Competition No. 3259, you were invited to submit a poem entitled ‘A(n) [insert county of your choice] Lad’. There has been quite a fanfare this year to mark the centenary of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, but rather less attention has been paid to Housman’s Last Poems, also published 100 years ago. Hence this
Somewhere in 23D 30 July is important. Remaining unclued lights (including two pairs and a trio) give the place’s capital city, one of its volcanoes, an indigenous reptile and its national anthem. Its former name (three words) appears diagonally in the completed grid and must be shaded. Elsewhere, ignore an apostrophe. Across 1 Observe
As suggested by 11 across, the other unclued lights were anagrams of capital cities: 23A Nairobi, 25A Nassau, 29A Lima, 35A Pretoria, 40A Kabul, 2D Seoul, 6D Luanda, 20D San Marino, 28D Nicosia, 31D Manila. First prize Elaine Galloway, London SE6 Runners-up Dennis Cotterell, Carlisle; Wendy Whitelock, Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire
