• Royals state visits – grit teeth and carry on

      In a grovelling attempt to curry favour with Trump, Keir Starmer produced a rabbit of the hat in the form of a personal letter from King Charles. It not only suggested a second state visit, untypical for a returning president, but also a pre-Balmoral knees up to discuss same. It worked. Monarchs are used to their ‘soft power’ being utilized if politics demand it, when glazed smiles and gritted teeth are the order of the day. Queen Elizabeth 11 entertained many controversi
  • Boris Spassky – master of the chess board

    Boris Spassky, the Russian chess grandmaster who against his wishes became embroiled in a Cold War east-west tussle with American player Bobby Fischer, has died. He was born 30 January 1937 in Leningrad, no birth time, with a military father, school teacher mother and a sister who won the Soviet draughts championship four times. He learnt to play chess on a train while he was being evacuated from Leningrad in 1942 and practised for five hours a day. When he was ten he beat the Soviet champi

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