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
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,
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
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,
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
‘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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Pooh-pooh Christmas Eve marks the 100th birthday of Winnie-the-Pooh, which first appeared in a short story in the Evening News on that day. The character was inspired by a bear bought by a Canadian vet, Harry Colebourn, at a railway station in Ontario on his way to serve on the Western Front – he
I give you permission to be grumpy on your birthday. Quibbles, Tussles… escalating to full-scale plate-smashing Rows are allowed. Hypochondria, Melancholia, Cattiness, Swipes, Barbs, Pollution Anxiety — all shall be smiled upon. Not literally. There will be a window at noon for a forty-five minute Tirade on Money Worries. Longer, if necessary. Don’t hold back.
we’re outside The Apple Pie, sheltering. A jackdaw hops on a table nearby, twitching its hooded head, chit-chattering urgent news. Fixing us with beaded eyes, its charcoal plumage paints the rain-rod day. You message Steve, his house still full of Kath. Step-dad or Lydia? Who’s come to stay? Someone’s there, we hope, to ease the
The unclued lights yield five phrases in German, all listed in one of the appendices in Chambers 13th edition: 1A, 17&31, 19D&18A, 37&30 and 43&29. First prize Diane Saxon, Stockport Runners-up Patrick Macdougall, London SW6; Martin Plews and Anne Greenwood, Horsham, W. Sussex
Events, dear boy 1. Bryan Adams 2. MI6 3. Beijing 4. Jellyfish 5. Vladimir Putin 6. To feed its lions and tigers 7. Afghanistan 8. In Lake Balaton, Hungary 9. Bats 10. Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister Capital fun 1. Topeka 2. Cair Paravel 3. Albany, Georgia, has more than 66,000; Albany, California more
Take a walk with me down to the stream. It’s a cold, clear day. Frost underfoot. Tonight there will be stars: approaching home, we’ll crane our necks to count them, while billions of years whoosh past and next-door’s cat creeps over the shed. For now, it’s the stream we’re seeing through: billions of drops absolved
Party’s over Sir: My departure from Your Party, described as ‘disputed’ by Douglas Murray (‘Where was my invitation to Your Party?’, 6 December), was in truth rather mundane: I had naively assumed that a party born to challenge the narrowing horizons of British politics might permit more than one world view at a time. This