flat white

The government needs to wean itself off tobacco tax

Albert Einstein pointed out the obvious when he said, “We can not solve our problems with the same level of…

23 Aug 2020

The granddad speech

CNN is saying the Biden speech proves he isn’t an old man, even though anyone with elderly parents would recognize…

22 Aug 2020

Is it time that we learned to stand on our own two feet instead of cashing in on the market for victimhood?

Back in at January, the Benson Centre for the study of Western Civilisation hosted noted scholar Ayaan Hirsi Ali. In…

21 Aug 2020

If we outsource our thinking to artificial intelligence will we also surrender responsibility – and more?

Artificial Intelligence can’t come soon enough, especially if one considers the behaviour of some people in the middle of the…

21 Aug 2020

Go have a long lunch, Emma, and put away the phone

It’s awful losing your job. Bloody awful. Full stop. Most of us have been there one time or another. We…

The brave new world of ‘moral bioenhancement’

O wonder!How many goodly creatures are there here!How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,That has such people in’t.  — William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act…

21 Aug 2020

The cultural juggernaut of transgender ideology: not kids’ stuff

Even as an adult, it can be an intimidating and daunting task to untangle and challenge the lies of transgender…

20 Aug 2020

Labor: the party of the workers – or the woke?

Labor might need to split into two separate parties if it is to represent workers as well as inner-city poodle…

20 Aug 2020

China disappears at the DNC

Members of media hailed the all-digital Democratic National Convention and convention coordinator Stephanie Cutter, the former Obama adviser famous for…

22 Aug 2020

We're stuck in a coronavirus time warp

There is actually some good news emerging from the tragic gloom of the Covid-19 epidemic. Despite some relaxation of lockdown…

22 Aug 2020

It's time for Imran Khan to accept Israel is here to stay

‘Our stand on Israel is clear,’ Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan said this week. ‘We cannot recognise Israel until Palestinians…

Brexit blame game as latest talks stall

Despite Boris Johnson’s call for Brexit negotiations to speed up, the seventh round of talks has today ended with little progress. Neither side…

21 Aug 2020

This isn’t leadership

One of Scott Morrison’s key innovations, as border protection minister, was to stop the practice of making announcements every time…

22 Aug 2020

The madness of Saint Jeannette

George Orwell – one of the 20th century’s great enemies of authoritarianism and bureaucratic lies – famously observed that ‘saints…

22 Aug 2020

BLM and the N word

Godwin’s Law states that ‘as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler or Nazis approaches…

22 Aug 2020

Middle East game changer

On 13 August, politics in the Middle East, that most volatile of regions, transformed in what has been described as…

22 Aug 2020

This craven breed of men

Let’s be honest. The docile, supine, pusillanimous way in which many Australians are meekly accepting being ordered into their homes,…

22 Aug 2020

Facenanny knows best

‘Your post goes against our Community Standards on misinformation’ warns the Facebook censor when your article vanishes from its site.…

22 Aug 2020

Business/Robbery etc.

Greg Combet: Labor’s cashed-up secret weapon Get used to seeing Greg Combet’s face on TV; his new ‘personal’ superannuation ads…

22 Aug 2020

Under the cover of Covid

A spectre is haunting the world—the Mussolini syndrome where the leader addresses the populace based on a cocktail of alien,…

22 Aug 2020

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Weekly round up of the best Flat White blogs

Zadie Smith

She had a heady start to her writing career. The rights to her first novel were the subject of a…

22 Aug 2020

A.N. Wilson

Kathy Lette says that during lockdown she has been reading Dickens. Her choice illustrates the enduring appeal of Charles Dickens…

15 Aug 2020

James Darling striding the shores of Limebuners’ Bay

‘Just as I am’ is the recurrent opening line of a hymn written in 1835 by Charlotte Elliott. It was…

8 Aug 2020

Pierre Soulages

A French painting purchased in Melbourne in 1953 has been repatriated selling for $5.26m earlier this month in Paris. For…

25 Jul 2020

Kiwi Life

‘Trustworthy, accurate and reliable news stories are more important now than ever. Support our newsrooms by making a contribution.’How wonderfully…

22 Aug 2020

Bad news from my oncologist didn’t spoil my joyous reunion with my grandson

The Moulinards had inhabited the old stone hilltop house for centuries, ekeing out a hard living among the sun-baked boulders.…

22 Aug 2020

How to have a happy old age

Gstaad   Birthdays at my age are for the birds, but always a good excuse for a party. Messages of…

22 Aug 2020

My ‘virus’ turned out to be arthritis

‘Hallo! You was callin’ us about appoint…MENT!’ said the lady at the scanning unit of my local hospital in broken…

22 Aug 2020

Bombs over London: V for Victory, by Lissa Evans, reviewed

Lissa Evans has been single-handedly rescuing the Hampstead novel from its reputation of being preoccupied by pretension and middle-class morality.…

22 Aug 2020

Should we all be prepping for the end of days?

In the Covid-19 crisis the calamity-howlers have found a vindication: go back to survival mode and bunker down because nobody…

22 Aug 2020

Beauty and the beast: Jane Birkin’s love affair with Serge Gainsbourg

I met Jane Birkin’s parents, who flit across these pages. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an actress in Noël Coward…

22 Aug 2020

In just eight years Selim I became ‘God’s Shadow on Earth’

Faber must take a rather dim view of British readers’ historical awareness these days. This is a biography of one…

22 Aug 2020

A rainy day in the Highlands: Summerwater, by Sarah Moss, reviewed

There is an old Yorkshire tale about a prosperous town which, legend has it, once stood on the site of…

22 Aug 2020

It’s time to leave Chopin in peace

There’s a scene early on in A Song to Remember — Charles Vidor’s clunky Technicolor film of 1945 — in…

22 Aug 2020

Sport, for the English, has always been a defiant assertion of liberty

The English cannot be understood without some appreciation of their attachment to their games, and yet this is an area…

22 Aug 2020

Who is telling the truth in Kate Reed Petty’s True Story?

This debut novel, which opens with ‘a high- school lacrosse party in 1999 and the rumour of a sexual assault,’…

15 Aug 2020