The Gospel according to Lady Gaga
Theologians come in all sorts of strange packages nowadays. No more bearded old guys in stuffy booklined offices it seems.…
Cricket needs a counter-reformation
The recent scandals and poor performance of Australia’s national team will quicken the quest for practical solutions. But the deeper…
The Aboriginal industry: a new religion?
Religion is an inescapable concept – everybody has a religion. Everybody has a basic set of assumptions about metaphysics, epistemology…
Wait a day, then comment
The mainstream media – let alone social media – are so good at generating instant outrage that I now have…
Sorry kids, but no socialism for you
Views that Australia will turn into a utopia under socialism are wildly uninformed, and John Quiggin’s already infamous Guardian piece…
Time to legalise mother’s other little helpers
One really must wonder what they smoke up there in New South Wales. The State Government, fresh off wondering whether…
Time to take a second look at that Gillette ad?
If the purpose of advertising is to get as much publicity as possible, then Gillette hit on a winner last…
Monster fires: another gift from the greens
Carbon dioxide must be an almighty gas – it gets blamed for almost every human disaster. Now we have the…
Here’s the recipe for success
After a family Christmas in Canada my wife and I are now in London for half a year. It’s been…
Cash cows facing starvation
Amidst all the politicking in America over Trump’s wall and the spending bill, one excellent result has been the demise…
Western Civ: it’s not just for white people anymore
When the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation generously offered to fund ‘Western Civ’ courses at Australian universities, critics at the…
Business/Robbery etc
The omens for Australia point to a lousy 2019 – politically, economically, commercially and internationally. Fear that Coalition election defeats…
What I learned at the hand of Brother Joseph
If anybody used the term ‘religious freedom’ during my childhood, I would have assumed it referred to the times at…
Alice in Leftist-land
‘There’s no use trying,’ says Alice to the Queen in Through the Looking-Glass, ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’ No? Clearly…
Aux bien pensants
The New York Times reports the truly shocking news that Australia punches below its weight. The NYT’s source, Lowy Institute…
Shame, shame, shame on New Zealand
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel once famously wrote ‘what hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but…
Kitty Flanagan
She’s bright and very funny. Kitty Flanagan was born and educated in Sydney. She is described as a stand-up comedian;…
Wozzeck
The story is bleak, very bleak; the music bleak and very loud, yet Wozzeck is regarded as an outstanding 20th…
Beware of Pity
Festivals are an opportunity to present performances that might not otherwise be seen; there are several in this year’s Sydney…
Female statue head Villa Casali
Most of us love Rome while still being a little overwhelmed by it. The Roman Empire’s geographical spread and duration…
Ernst Jünger — reluctant captain of the Wehrmacht
Ernst Jünger, who died in 1998, aged 102, is now better known for his persona than his work. A deeply…
How Enoch Powell fancied himself Viceroy of India — and other startling revelations
Interviews, like watercolours, are very hard to get right, and yet look how steadily their art has become degraded and…
Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: the triumph of Rorke’s Drift
On 22 January last year, the entrance whiteboard at London Underground’s Dollis Hill carried a brief factual statement: On this…
How Eric Clapton’s racism sparked a musical revolution
On 13 August 1977, a demonstration by the National Front was routed in the streets of Lewisham by thousands of…
The best way to defeat totalitarianism? Treat it as a joke
Is there anything one can never laugh about? A question inevitably hanging over humour writing, it’s best answered by the…
Is the threat of capital punishment really the foundation of good behaviour?
Richard Wrangham embraces controversy, and appears to enjoy munching apples from carts he upsets himself. While his new book seems…
Lost in allegory: The Wall, by John Lanchester, reviewed
Dystopian fiction continues to throng the bookshelves, for all the world as though we weren’t living in a dystopia already,…
Death of a rock star: Slow Motion Ghosts, by Jeff Noon, reviewed
Here is a novel set in the no man’s land between past and present, a fertile and constantly shifting territory…
Pitches in the boardroom: football’s future assured
This is a story of resurrection. A mere three decades ago, club football in England was a professional game largely…
Investigative journalists: new crime fiction reviewed
Despite being well-travelled as the BBC’s world affairs editor, John Simpson doesn’t roam far from home in his spy thriller,…
Hungary is being led once again down a dangerous nationalistic path
Norman Stone has already written, with a brilliant blend of humour, understanding and scepticism, histories of the Eastern Front, Turkey,…
Should William Penn be shaking in his grave?
The ultimate driving force of William Penn’s adult life is inaccessible, as the Quaker phrase ‘Inner Light’ suggests. While a…