Tech gurus don’t let their kids have smartphones. Here’s why
Pupils are back in classrooms and parents can finally have a brief respite from worrying about their children’s excessive screen…
Business/Robbery etc
As disasters go, 9/11 is now much less of a problem for the world than 9/15. There are no widespread…
Dispatches from the conservative frontline
In early 2017, as feminists in pink pussy hats marched in shocked outrage at the election of President Trump, a…
Revenge of the Queen Bees
Three girls in school tunics and battered hats are firing a machine gun in the quad. ‘Girls, girls, a little…
The war of the world
To properly understand the trend of world political events in recent years, it is essential to appreciate that a titanic…
Aux bien pensants
You can’t walk on both sides of the street, PM If the Coalition were to go to the general election…
Stolen land? Tell that to the Berbers
Last month, Greens Senator Dr Mehreen Faruqi spoke some of the most misguided and divisive words heard in parliament in…
Upsetting Maggie
I had certainly not intended to upset Margaret Thatcher when I joined the Times in 1987 but when we met…
Sovereignty is sacred
Increasingly, many if not most Australian, British, American and other Western politicians have been imposing policies the people would never…
Kate Morton
She was born in a small town in South Australia, later grew up on Tamborine Mountain and, when aged barely…
Evita and Che
‘The people adore me/ So, Christian Dior me’ is just one of the many witty and pointed couplets written by…
Michael Fabiano
There will be a lot going on at Opera Australia in 2019 with arguably the most interesting repertoire for a…
![Richard Tognetti [Photo: Zan Wimberley]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/08/Culture_Buff.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=730&h=486)
Richard Tognetti
Going from strength to strength, the Australian Chamber Orchestra’s recently announced 2019 Season shows no flagging of inspiration or ambition.…
Helen Parr’s intimate portrait of the Parachute Regiment – Our Boys – captures the essence of modern Britain
On the night of 13 June 1982, Dave Parr was hit by shellfire on Wireless Ridge. He was 19, a…
The history of Britain’s secret war on Napoleon is astonishing, inspiring and disturbing
Laws and sausages, we know, are better not seen in the making; and neither are ‘black ops’. Waterloo may have…
Good first novels without ends leave one wanting more
Novels today do not want to be done. Thank Anthony Burgess and John Fowles for this, most immediately, but alternate…
Two legal big hitters consider the appropriate distribution of governmental power in Britain
Sir Stephen Sedley read English at Cambridge and Lord Dyson Classics at Oxford. Both switched to law and achieved high…
Julie Burchill is bored by Robin Green’s account of her time at Rolling Stone – and says hippies still stink
The last time I saw a copy of the New Musical Express — the ferociously influential 1970s pop paper which…
Two new books explore the triumphs and tribulations of an underrated king – Henry II
Poor old Henry II: once fêted as one of England’s greatest kings, he has long been neglected. Accessible books on…
Humans are animals, and our extinction is inevitable – but we’re still pretty amazing
Ever since enlivenment of the primordial blob, before thoughts were first verbalised, all nature has always been motivated by a…
![‘Achilles has a dispute with Agamemnon [following Briseis being taken away, and Achilles refusing to fight until she is returned]’, J.H. Tischbein, 1776, oil on canvas. (Bridgeman Images)](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/09/achillies.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=730&h=486)
Pat Barker travels to Troy, but finds herself diverted somewhere outside Ypres
Sing muse, begins The Iliad, of the wrath of Achilles. We are dropped straight into the tenth year of the…
Kate Atkinson’s new novel Transcription asks us how carefully we are paying attention
Transcription, Kate Atkinson’s 11th novel, sees her returning to the detective fiction she honed in her series about Jackson Brodie,…
My grandmother’s perfect pub – a memoir by Laura Thompson
As an emigrant from Scotland, I was taken aback by the weird foreignness of the south of England. Some of…
Paul Ewen’s Francis Plug is the saviour of comic fiction
Such was the perceived low standard of the 62 books recently submitted for the 2018 Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction,…
Handel’s greatest hits — the glorious London decades
England has been home to three great composer-entrepreneurs since 1700: Benjamin Britten in the 20th century; Arthur Sullivan in the…