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The unclued lights comprise the seven themes (here in upper case) and six theme-words beginning with A to F. ARTISTS: Andy Warhol, Banksy, Canaletto, Dali, El Greco, Fragonard BATTLES: Anzio, Boyne, Cannae, Dunbar, El Alamein, Flodden CAPITALS: Athens, Berlin, Caracas, Doha, Edinburgh, Freetown DOGS: Airedale, Beagle, Corgi, Dachshund, Elkhound, Fido EQUINES: Arkle, Bidet, Clydesdale, Desert/Orchid,
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Home The government dropped plans to make digital ID compulsory to work in Britain. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, called it ‘disgraceful’ that Grok, the online tool on Elon Musk’s X, could undress pictures of people. X limited the function to subscribers, but Liz Kendall, the Technology Secretary, said that the government would back
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Net freedoms The government was pressed to ban X over charges that Elon Musk’s AI app Grok is being used to ‘undress’ women and children. Kemi Badenoch said the Tories would copy Australia in banning under-16s from social media. What are the most extreme countries for regulating the internet and social media – using a
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No EU turn Sir: Before Dr Brian Mathew’s letter on ‘How to restore prosperity’ appeared (10 January), the FT printed an article making it clear that Britain’s powerful financial services industry would not be included in the government’s much-vaunted ‘reset’ with the EU. It quoted figures from the City saying that this was ‘the last
World’s stock of afternoons is running short And summer’s light is turning golden brown – It’s time to summon up our winter thoughts Since poetry will always be our sport And images, once mothered, won’t disown Our afternoons, though old, though running short, For in mind’s shadows metaphors hold court And new dreams swarm. We
It’s too late now to say you are not old, the years gang up on you, they settle down like locusts falling on a field of grain, the rustling noise you hear, that is their sound. How to be old: I’ll help you on the way. Stand straight. Be calm. Pretend you are a tree
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The house lights dim again: Willy Loman, Vanya, Lear talk to the dark before their eyes – while you glance sideways at your neighbours, who’ve brought their lovers, husbands, wives to sit beside them (or to occupy their minds). What do they want to see? The play goes on, into its last deciding act. A
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Donald Trump’s rendition of Nicolas Maduro was a brilliantly executed coup. It was also an exhibition of America’s hard power, power that has underpinned the rules-based international order that protected America’s allies for decades. Now those allies fear that the rules-based order is as much a smoking ruin as Maduro’s Caracas compound. European hysteria is,
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Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said Britain was not involved ‘in any way’ in the US strikes on Venezuela. But he tweeted: ‘We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate president and we shed no tears about the end of his regime.’ Earlier that day, Dame Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, had said: ‘Nobody
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Don BRADMAN (26) said, ‘When you play test cricket you don’t give Englishmen an inch’. The other unclued lights are: CUMMINS (12), URN (27), ASHES (13), and STOKES (32). AUS/ENG, in the seventh row, should be highlighted. The title is taken from the same Bradman quotation. First prize Roger Mills, Emsworth, Hants Runners-up Nigel Finlay,
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No to Reform Sir: Perhaps because I have been candid about the Conservative party’s failures in office, I am mooted as being of interest to Reform by your political editor (‘14 questions for 2026’, 3 January). But acknowledging failures is not a prelude to defection; it is the necessary starting point of renewal. When Reform
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‘THE HORROR! THE HORROR!’ (4D/18A/3D) is a quotation from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, author of THE SECRET AGENT (9D). The protagonists are MARLOW (31D) and KURTZ (21A) and the tale was told in a YAWL (24A) called NELLIE (26D). Title: abbr. KN = heart of DARKNESS. First prize James Smalley, Walthamstow, London E17
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Erasmus in England The government is to rejoin the Erasmus scheme, which allows students at British universities to spend time studying in other European countries, with reciprocal opportunities for EU students. How did Desiderius Erasmus’s own studies in England go? — In 1499 he spent two months at St Mary’s College, Oxford, where he attended
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World’s stock of afternoons is running short And summer’s light is turning golden brown – It’s time to summon up our winter thoughts Since poetry will always be our sport And images, once mothered, won’t disown Our afternoons, though old, though running short, For in mind’s shadows metaphors hold court And new dreams swarm. We
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In 1956, Malta held a referendum on joining the United Kingdom. Since the islands were economically reliant on the Royal Navy, it was unsurprising that three-quarters of those voting believed their future lay in integrating with their colonial masters. But after a lukewarm response from the British government, the referendum result was never implemented and
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Home The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced plans to criminalise trail hunting ‘amid concerns it is being used as a smokescreen for hunting’; another part of the new animal welfare strategy will make it a crime to boil a live lobster. The government revised the threshold below which, from April, agricultural assets
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Man with man to dwell Sir: Your editorial (‘All ye faithful’, 13-27 December) suggests that scepticism about Stephen Yaxley-Lennon’s (Tommy Robinson’s) Christian faith tends to coincide with credulity about conversions among refugees from Muslim-majority countries, and vice versa. This does not reflect the experience of many churches. Over the past year in our congregation, several
January For three weeks wildfires raged around Los Angeles. Perhaps 30 people were killed but 200,000 were evacuated, 18,000 homes and structures destroyed and 57,529 acres burnt. Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th President. On his first day he issued about 1,500 pardons for people charged in connection with the attack on the Capitol
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A meeting planned in secret. A message deemed subversive. The authorities both antagonised and confused. The gatherings of the early Church in the time of the Roman Empire? Or Tommy Robinson’s proposed carol concert at an as yet undisclosed London location, proclaimed as the event to put ‘Christ back into Christmas’? To draw even the
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January Downing Street said Rachel Reeves would remain in her role as Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘for the whole of this parliament’. She made a speech standing behind a placard saying: ‘Kickstart economic growth.’ Axel Rudakubana, 18, was sentenced to at least 52 years in prison for the murder of three girls in a knife