Fairly odd 1. Lilt 2. For driving at 25mph in a 20mph zone 3. India 4. President Joe Biden 5. Boris and Carrie Johnson 6. Pakistan 7. The Seychelles 8. Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi 9. Chocolate 10. The Graf Spee, scuttled in 1939 You don’t say 1. Boris Johnson 2. Donald Trump, on appearing in court
Unclued lights were all kinds of STEW (highlighted). First prize Pam Dunn, Sevenoaks, Kent Runners-up David Morris, Birchington, Kent; R.A. Towle, Ilkeston, Derbyshire
The rustle of coarse, carded yarn, through fine taut cotton, pulled to a point: tense, hoarse, a wordless whisper, saying something sexual.
Seth, Seth, the servile serf Earned his cruste by plowing earthe. Thick filthe lay on his every limbe. The stynke of Seth was foule and grimme. When summer came with azure skye And barleycorne was ripe and drye, Seth leapt at dawne, uncleane from bedde, To shake the dandruffe from his hedde. He scythed ’til
Two years ago, a new strain of Covid emerged and with it came calls for a Christmas lockdown. The Omicron variant was said to spread far faster than previous iterations of the virus and Imperial’s Neil Ferguson warned that it was no less deadly. The call for lockdown began and Britain came very close to
Home James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, told the Commons that to gain a work visa, migrants must in future secure a salary of at least £38,700 instead of the present £26,200. The government also said it would stop health and care workers and students bringing family dependants to Britain. He said this would have disqualified
The unclued lights are the surnames of the nine LONDON WORTHIES, verifiable in Brewer. First prize Andy Gemmill, Lenzie, Glasgow Runners-up Alasdair MacKenzie, Hambledon, Hants; Emma Corke, Abinger Hammer, Surrey
Power to the readers Sir: I would suggest that even if the government of the UAE gives a ‘cast-iron’ guarantee not to interfere with The Spectator’s editorial line, this should be taken with a very large pinch of salt (‘The real deal’, 2 December). Why don’t you ask your subscribers to buy the magazine? With nearly 140,000
Black and white politics Two pandas, Yang Guang and Tian Tian, left Edinburgh Zoo for China after their 12-year loan to Britain ended. But contrary to popular belief, ‘panda diplomacy’ didn’t begin in 1972 when Chairman Mao gave two to the visiting Richard Nixon – and received two musk oxen in return. (In 1974, Mao
Past time, maintains the broken clock. It isn’t off, not by a minute. Without a tick, without a tock, Past time, maintains the broken clock. Twice every day, those still hands mock the present, but they’re never in it. Past time, maintains the broken clock, It isn’t off, not by a minute.
The puzzle appeared on 11 November 2023. The unclued lights reveal ‘The CENOTAPH and POPPY evoke REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY, once ARMISTICE DAY, the ARMISTICE being SIGNED at the ELEVENTH HOUR, ELEVENTH DAY and ELEVENTH MONTH’. First prize Victoria Estcourt, Tisbury, Wilts Runners-up John Harley, Norton, Stockton on Tees; M.D. Conway, Grimsby
‘We can be quite sentimental about some of our so-called treasured assets,’ said Lord Johnson, one of Kemi Badenoch’s business ministers, earlier this week. ‘The reality is that media and information has moved on. Clearly, most of us today don’t buy a physical newspaper or necessarily go to a traditional news source.’ His implication was
‘Love and war are the same thing…’ — Miguel de Cervantes Somewhere over the tiled foothills of our council estate A man and a woman are arguing. The focus of the argument is something brutally trivial A TV programme choice, that sort of thing, Yet the air is a hot Isandlewana of big
Home Net migration reached a record 745,000 last year, the Office for National Statistics said, 139,000 higher than the 606,000 it had previously given. Robert Jenrick, the minister for immigration, was reported to be ‘pressuring’ No. 10 with ideas for cutting immigration, such as by making a minimum salary of £35,000 a requirement for a work
No control Sir: Your leading article (‘The welfare monster’, 25 November) has fallen into the increasingly common trap of posthumously attributing to Brexit voters imagined reasons for their voting to leave. No, we didn’t ‘in large part’ do so in a search for a better economic model. We did so to rid ourselves of the
School’s out Aslef members walked out on strike again this week, 18 months after this round of rail strikes began. But the unions still have a long way to catch up with Britain’s longest-ever strike, which lasted 25 years in the unlikely setting of the village of Burston, Norfolk. It began on 1 April 1914
He felt brave, capable and full of duty He went out with the rest of them and scoured the high grass And the tide-step and low sandy grass He saw how early morning on the river had its beauty They spread out in a loose crescent form Each man could hear the other’s high rubber
To grasp the scale of Britain’s welfare crisis, consider some of the changes announced by the government this week. There will be tighter restrictions on sickness benefit and people with mobility issues will have to work from home. It’s a big and controversial reform. But the result? The number of Britons claiming sickness benefits –
Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said, ‘We can now move on to the next phase of our economic plan and turn our attention to cutting taxes,’ having seen a reduction in inflation. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed suit in the Autumn Statement, cutting personal taxes. The government was to make changes
Unclued lights are anagrams of US state capitals: 13A Boise; 18A Dover; 23A Raleigh; 24A Denver; 28A Madison; 38A Salem; 3D Austin; 22D Des Moines; 27D Lansing. 12A/2D is an anagram of Oklahoma City and 40A/29D of Baton Rouge. First prize Heather McLaren, Seaford, East Sussex Runners-up Iain Chadwick, Edinburgh; Raymond Wright, Wem, Shropshire