The bluffocracy: how Britain ended up being run by eloquent chancers
Any time we see a politician fail, or an idiotic policy collapse as it passes through parliament — which these days…
National roll of dishonour
In times of crisis, Australians demand leadership, leadership of the quality which that great Roman, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, or that…
Should we bomb Iran?
Clearly, when I say ‘we’, I don’t mean you and me. As a responsible Speccie reader I’m sure you know…
A change of wind
Annual Meeting of the Climate Change Party People of any sex or neither, let us begin by acknowledging the traditional…
Suffer your children
Of all the green/Left groups badgering schoolkids about human-caused global warming, the most determined is the Australian Academy of Science.…
Dear Jymbo
Dear Jymbo, I am a sad and disgruntled Liberal party member of parliament in Canberra. I thought I was being…
What did you not learn at school today?
It’s hard for a student at university these days, with all the awful things they (that’s the authorised pronoun for…
Sex, lies and fake news
Working in politics teaches you one thing about Australian voters. They despise the political class although not usually their local…
Business/Robbery etc
Pigs might fly – but they will not be Australian porkers (or beef or lamb) flying into the European Union…
The House
The House is the economically direct title of a new book about ‘the dramatic story of the Sydney Opera House…
Lang Lang in an improbable situation
An internationally admired orchestra in a beautiful hall: that’s the Melbourne Symphony in Hamer Hall of the Victorian Arts Centre.…
Wayne Blair
Such a lovely title, it’s hard to believe that The Long Forgotten Dream hasn’t been used before. The title belongs…
John Russell
Once he was known as ‘Australia’s lost impressionist’ and referred to as John Peter Russell. Now at the Art Gallery…
Ménage à quatre with Robert Graves
‘I have a very poor opinion of other people’s opinion of me — though I am fairly happy in my…
A feast for foot fetishists
It is always interesting to see what art historians get up to when none of the rest of us is…
Did the notorious Zinoviev letter ever exist?
This is a well-written, scrupulously researched and argued account of an enduring mystery that neatly illustrates the haphazard interactions of…
The plight of the returnee: A Terrible Country, by Keith Gessen, reviewed
If the 20th century popularised the figure of the émigré, the 21st has introduced that of the returnee, who, aided…
Anita Leslie: sparkling socialite with the Croix de Guerre
Anita Leslie knew how to tell a story. Arranging to sit for a portrait six months before she died, she…
How do we envisage Shakespeare’s wife?
Despite his having one of the most famous names in the world, we know maddeningly little about William Shakespeare. His…
Unlucky in love: Caroline’s Bikini, by Kirsty Gunn, reviewed
‘The most interesting novels are a bit strange,’ Kirsty Gunn once told readers of the London Review of Books. ‘They…
From the Iliad to the IRA: Country, by Michael Hughes, reviewed
Recently there has been a spate of retellings of the Iliad, to name just Pat Barker’s The Silence of the…
It’s time to rehabilitate the art connoisseur
Many art historians have written their own story of the making of an aesthete: Ruskin, Berenson and Kenneth Clark to…
The perfect guide to a book everyone should read
‘The Divine Comedy is a book that everyone ought to read,’ according to Jorge Luis Borges, and every Italian has…
The selective breeding of pets: how far should we go?
It was in his play Back to Methuselah that George Bernard Shaw honoured a lesser known aspect of Charles Darwin’s…
‘We are not cattle, we’re people’: everyday hell in Stalin’s labour camps
‘No testimony from this time must ever be forgotten,’ the great Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova says in his afterword to…