Rocket science
The AMA’s comic crew get the vapours
Those who have been to Venice have probably witnessed some form of Commedia Dell’arte, an improvised form of comedy where…
Smokin’ Joe Hildebrand: Bible school dropout
In what must surely come close to the modern-day equivalent of having committed career suicide, journalist Joe Hildebrand has converted…
If one scientist was enough for Einstein…
How many scientists do you need to demonstrate to policymakers in words they can understand that CO2 is not a…
CBD: Palmer and Shorten, blood brothers fighting for the workers
Our perspicacious political insider writes exclusively: Recent polling suggesting a surge of newfound popularity for Clive Palmer gives CBD comfort…
Magical mystery tour or highway to hell for Labor’s big red bus?
Pollsters stay at home on long weekends, but anyone watching Bill Shorten’s magical mystery tour on the big red diesel…
Why it’s all too white in Westeros
The old leftie George R R Martin discovers that you can never be woke enough. Because the world of the…
Three myths about equality Labor wants you to believe
Labor leader Bill Shorten is running under the motto — “A Fair Go for Australia” — but is his party…
Backwards & Forwards: happy clappy happy
The week in politics, the week to come: Looking back Scott Morrison and the Coalition won the week. Nothing more…
Robert Mueller pursued every avenue to dispel the collusion myth
If the report released Thursday proved anything, it was that Robert Mueller and his team of prosecutors had an extremely…
The Mueller report: if not collusion, then obstruction?
When Robert Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel, ‘[t]he President slumped back in his chair and said, “Oh my God.…
Who is the busiest Tory leadership candidate of them all?
Tory MPs agree that Theresa May’s days in Downing Street are numbered, but when it comes to picking her replacement…
Will a Queen’s speech spell the end of May’s government?
What is the maximum point of danger for the government in the coming months? After Theresa May secured a six…
Rocket science
The news has finally reached us over here in London. Australia is going to have an election. The choice will…
Compensating abuse
Here’s a piece of news you won’t get from the ABC or the ex-Fairfax press. It concerns the gold-and-wool-rich provincial…
Whatever happened to the flapping butterfly?
The confluence of mathematics and science provides us with proof and certainty. It is also beautiful: think of Einstein’s theory…
Whiffy-leaks
If fish and visitors stink in three days, as Benjamin Franklin advised, it’s easy to see how Wikileaks founder Julian…
Aussie Maggie
It is an irony and paradox that successful conservatism often requires radical solutions. So it was with Margaret Thatcher’s revolution…
A prayer for the West
Symbolism matters. It’s why the Muslim call to prayer rang out across New Zealand after the Christchurch massacre, and why…
Smoking out the neo-coms
Among the many considerable services Tony Abbott has rendered Australia, one was to persuade the late Paul Ramsay to endow…
Sleepwalking to oblivion
‘Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late. If…
Melbourne cast of Cosi
It was one of the most delightful Australian films of the 1990s. Directed by Mark Joffe, Cosi was also one…
Jonathan Biggins as Paul Keating
This is a show for the nostalgic and the masochistic. The Gospel According to Paul is a one man show…
Self portrait 1934 Nora Heysen
In his new biography of Winston Churchill, Andrew Roberts notes that ‘it was said of Emperor Napoleon III that he…
Fernando Guimarães
The closing chapters of Homer’s Odyssey were the source for the opera regarded as the crowning achievement of composer Claudio…
A new version of Saladin — as silver-tongued diplomat
I can only remember one page of any of the dozens of Ladybird histories that I read avidly as a…
Will the Pilgrims’ Way soon rival the Camino de Santiago?
There are more than 100 cathedrals in England, Scotland and Wales of many different denominations (although I for one had…
Vasily Grossman: eye-witness to the 20th century’s worst atrocities
Vasily Grossman’s novel Life and Fate (completed in 1960) has been hailed as a 20th-century War and Peace. It has…
A computer will never write the Brandenburg Concertos
What is creativity? Marcus du Sautoy, a mathematician and Oxford professor for the public understanding of science, offers this pert…
The invisible man behind Hollywood’s greatest films
What do the following filmmakers have in common: Victor Fleming, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, Ernst Lubitsch,…
Murder in the basement: The Language of Birds, by Jill Dawson, reviewed
Jill Dawson has a taste for murder. One of her earlier novels, the Orange shortlisted Fred and Edie, fictionalised the…
The Struggle and The Scream: is Karl Ove Knausgaard Munch’s doppelgänger?
Norway doesn’t have a world-class philosopher (Kierkegaard was Danish). Karl Ove Knausgaard declared at the end of his previous book…
Was there no end to John Buchan’s talents?
John Buchan was a novelist, historian, poet, biographer and journalist (assistant editor of The Spectator indeed); a barrister and publisher;…
Time for a Tippett revival
Running the entire course of the 20th century, Michael Tippett’s life (1905–1998) was devoted to innovation. He was an English…
Toy boy: Machines Like Me, by Ian McEwan, reviewed
What kind of loyalty do we owe a robot we’ve paid for — one who exhibits a convincingly human kind…
How climate change led to capitalism
At a dinner recently I was told the story of a Canadian billionaire (now defined in banking circles as someone…
I could have stopped Harold Shipman’s killing spree and saved 175 lives
Scientists, it turns out, are really bad at statistics. Numerous studies show that a startling proportion of academics consistently misunderstand…