flat white

Welcome to the University Australia

In their 1976 classic Hotel California, The Eagles sang of a haunted hotel where “you can check out any time…

15 Jun 2020

No, inequality is not discrimination

A problem misdiagnosed is a problem mistreated.  Many people today assume without question that all inequality is the result of…

15 Jun 2020

Cook statue vandalism: one of these reports is not like the others

In the early hours of yesterday, the statue of Captain James Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park was vandalised, allegedly by…

Uproar in Danandrewstan: the inside story (or not)

The following is a transcript of an interview with Chairman Dan Andrews conducted by Fake News late on Sunday evening…

Ultimo must fall

Over the weekend, we saw police officers being punched, kicked and spat on. We saw riots, looting, property destroyed and…

15 Jun 2020

Goodbye Giants, but I don’t need your virtue signalling

Dear Tony I have enclosed my 2019 GWS Premium Membership Card which you might like to pass onto one of…

14 Jun 2020

Quick, we must rename Darwin!

The Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the globe has led to statues of controversial historical figures like slave traders and…

14 Jun 2020

They know nothing

So, now we are apparently living in what is called a “cancel culture”.   Removing historical TV shows and movies will not help anyone in trying to…

14 Jun 2020

COVID and the left: you can’t rally, but we can riot

Are you ready for the second blame wave? As the country braces itself for an inevitable repeat surge in COVID-19…

15 Jun 2020

Society isn’t systemically racist. It is systemically woke

Structural, systemic, systematically — we’re hearing these words a lot at the moment. Racism isn’t individual. It is structural or…

15 Jun 2020

Boris’s gender change shake-up leaves Labour with a difficult choice

The Sunday Times says Boris Johnson is going to reject May-era proposals to allow people to “self-identify” changes of their…

14 Jun 2020

11 people who should have statues

The Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Topple the Racists’ campaign have reminded us that monuments in public spaces can…

14 Jun 2020

Don’t mention this article on your smart phone

While Chinese propaganda depicts Westerners reading bedtime stories to their children about the wonders of President Xi’s One Belt; One…

13 Jun 2020

Weak men, hard times

Kudos to a writer you’ve probably never heard of – G. Michael Hopf – who has recently written an aphorism…

13 Jun 2020

Magical thinking

The third horseman of the American Apocalypse is expected to arrive this month. Pandemics and race wars will pass, but…

13 Jun 2020

Black lives damaged

Broadway is still in lockdown, but across America the show must go on. For the last fortnight, Black Lives Matter…

13 Jun 2020

Blacktivists ignore the real plight of indigenous Australia

For a perfect illustration of how self-delusional, ineffective and irrational ‘woke’ generations are, go no further that the mass rallies…

13 Jun 2020

Business/Robbery etc

Don’t hold your breath waiting.  It will be many years – if ever – before there is any prospect of…

13 Jun 2020

Say it ain’t so, Joe

A dozen years ago we attended the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee in Washington. For the centenary function…

13 Jun 2020

The horse has bolted and the emperor has no clothes

‘The Emperor has no clothes’. This expresses, in literary terms, the overwhelming view of  the nation. Australians have been outraged…

13 Jun 2020

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Richard Tognetti

This week the Australia Chamber Orchestra should have been delighting audiences with their usual brilliant performances to celebrate the 30th…

13 Jun 2020

Belgravia

Belgravia is the rather coldly beautiful residential part of London bounded by Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Buckingham Palace. It is also…

6 Jun 2020

Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney Festival

To state the obvious, these are extremely testing times for the performing arts and live entertainment generally. Although galleries are…

30 May 2020

Cover of May issue of Apollo

We are all being digitised one way or another. Performing arts companies, not able to perform, are gamely putting themselves…

23 May 2020

An elegy for Vienna

Vienna Somebody once described Vienna as a top opera performed by understudies. The remark was unquestionably witty, but utterly false…

13 Jun 2020

My hairdresser cured my depression

I walked to the salon in fiery sunshine. Gorgeous, zaftig Elody was wearing a short satin dressing gown of silver…

13 Jun 2020

What should you charge for a virtual conference?

From time to time, every industry must adapt to some inconvenient technological advance. Suddenly, some part of what you offer…

13 Jun 2020

Dear Mary: How do I greet friends without hugs or handshakes?

Q. Now we are instructed to mingle again, I’m sure I’m not alone in being surprised to find an awkwardness…

13 Jun 2020

Ireland through the eyes of a brilliant teenage naturalist

Dara McAnulty is a teenage naturalist from Northern Ireland. He has autism; so do his brother, sister and mother —…

13 Jun 2020

The cure becomes the problem: The Seduction, by Joanna Briscoe, reviewed

Beth, the protagonist of Joanna Briscoe’s The Seduction, reminded me of Clare in Tessa Hadley’s debut, Accidents in the Home.…

13 Jun 2020

Science and philanthropy meet in the Royal Society of Arts

What does Jony Ive, the designer of Apple’s iPhone, have in common with Peter Perez Burdett, the first Englishman to…

13 Jun 2020

Northern noir: The Mating Habits of Stags, by Ray Robinson, reviewed

It is winter in north Yorkshire. On the brink of New Year, Jake, a laconic, isolated former farmhand in his…

13 Jun 2020

Tree-ring analysis has solved many historical mysteries

History is only as good as its sources. It is limited largely to what has survived of written records, and…

13 Jun 2020

Our recent stockpiling is nothing to what ‘preppers’ lay in store

This book could not have been published at a better time — nor, in a way, at a worse time.…

13 Jun 2020

The fitness fetish: The Motion of the Body Through Space, by Lionel Shriver, reviewed

In her 2010 novel So Much for That, Lionel Shriver examined the American healthcare system with a spiky sensitivity. Big…

13 Jun 2020

The end of capitalism has been just around the corner for centuries

These days the world seems to end with staggering regularity. From the financial crisis to Brexit to Trump to a…

13 Jun 2020