Our politicians have created a cringing Covid mentality
Freedom is the best reason to get vaccinted
There is a saying that goes like this: you can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust…
I’m guilty of going against The Science: a defence of my condemned, censored ‘dangerous’ speech to parliament
Politicians condemned me. Big Tech censored me. The mainstream media said my views were a danger to public health. Why?…
Afghanistan, women and safety
We have all seen the pictures of another Afghanistan, of beautiful women in short skirts carrying books at Kabul University.…
Our politicians have created a cringing Covid mentality
“The EPL is back” shouted commentator after commentator this weekend as cameras panned across sold-out, maskless crowds across English stadiums.…
Afghanistan’s fall — and our disgrace
If you go into someone else’s house and trash it, you have a moral as well as a legal obligation…
Jacinda Ardern asks the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has come out and asked the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women during this…
Qantas move makes mandatory job jabs clarity yet more urgent
Today, Qantas has become our largest corporate so far to announce it will make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for all staff.…
Kabul: some good must come of this
I’ve had a few thoughts on Afghanistan, which is a disaster I was against in the first instance, but once…
How did US intelligence get Afghanistan so wrong?
It may well go down as the understatement of the year. In a quite extraordinary address to the nation after…
Finally, the Sussexes speak out on Afghanistan
If you’re an Afghan translator sheltering in a Kabul compound, life must seem pretty grim. The Taliban’s triumph has brought…
Joe Biden’s shabby treatment of the Afghan army
Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?The President: No, it is not. Q. Why? The President: Because you —…
Joe Biden and the grand battle of ideas
Well, Donald Trump doesn’t seem so bad now, does he? I don’t say that because Joe Biden has turned out…
Jacinda Ardern asks the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has come out and asked the Taliban to be ‘nice’ to women during this…
Kiwi notes
Freedom after speech? I recall a very fine lawyer, New Zealand’s most highly regarded QC, once saying that no law…
New Zealand’s energy emergency
Regardless of the spin Jacinda Ardern’s government is putting on the fact that parts of our North Island cities have…
You go, girl! Laurel Hubbard and the other trans Olympians
You’ve got to give it to Shania Twain. When she belted out her 1997 hit, Man! I feel like a woman! she…
Covid in the age of unreason
Some governments and parliaments seem to suffer from the fatal conceit that they can create new reality simply by declaring…
Covid statistics tell a different story
It is with head-shaking disbelief that New South Welshmen (in particular at the present) awake each new day to find…
Business/Robbery, etc.
The Financial Review headline restored reality to a week of ‘red alert’ IPCC report-induced catastrophic climate hyperbole: ‘Europe May Clean…
Mummy Juanita, your sacrifice is needed
I read lots of random stuff, no doubt like many Speccie readers. I recently learnt about a mummified body of…
Moral busybodies, monstrous certainty
It was C.S. Lewis who observed that there is no tyranny more oppressive or insulting than that of ‘omnipotent moral…
China must cough up for Covid
On and on and on it goes, 17 months now and no end in sight. As the losses mount up…
Big sister
Australians would once proudly boast theirs was a nation under the rule of law. Sadly, we now live under the…
The donkey that went to Mecca
In Afghanistan it is said if a donkey goes to Mecca, when it returns, it is still a donkey. Despite…
Ernest Hemingway
Entertainment in a public place shrivels as the lockdowns continue. The Australian Ballet has cancelled its Melbourne season, Anna Karenina…
Aden Young
No one has any guarantee of seeing Sigrid Thornton in Lifespan of a Fact with the Sydney Theatre Company now…
Rose Byrne
‘Unemployed at last!’ That wonderful bit of national self-mockery that opens the classic Australian novel Such is Life takes on…
John Mortimer & Leo McKern
What earthly guarantee do we have that live performance is going to be a viable option for Sydney or Melbourne…
Hooray for Hollywood
Real cities have something else, some individual bony structure under the muck. Los Angeles has Hollywood – and hates it.…
The poet with many lives
This is an ingenious and infuriating book about an ingenious and infuriating writer. I first encountered Fernando Pessoa in the…
Keeping yourself angry, the Hare way: We Travelled, by David Hare, reviewed
A character in David Hare’s Skylight claims she has at last found contentment by no longer opening newspapers or watching…
Oliver Cromwell: ruthless in battle – but nice to his men
One of the first retrospective accounts of Oliver Cromwell’s early career, Andrew Marvell’s ‘An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from…
How we did the locomotion: A Brief History of Motion, by Tom Standage, reviewed
Audi will make no more fuel engines after 2035. So that’s the end of the Age of Combustion, signalled by…
The roots of conflict: The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak, reviewed
The Island of Missing Trees feels like a strange title until you realise how hard Elif Shafak makes trees work…
David Keenan, literary disruptor in chief
Near to the heart of this wild and labyrinthine novel — on page 516 of 808 — a character in…
Churchill as villain – but is this a character assassination too far?
The veteran journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft claims in his prologue to Churchill’s Shadow that: ‘This is not a hostile account, or…
