Australia: governed by kids that always get what they want
The West has a bad case of 'tall poppy syndrome'
I notice that the infantile ‘cutting down the tall poppy syndrome’ appears to be flourishing again. A favourite target of…
Breadgate: let them eat wholegrain
In recent weeks it’s been tempting to look for similarities between the re-election prospects of Boris Johnson and Scott Morrison.…
Weaponising womanhood to destroy equality
Lately, I have been considering why, at a time when women have unprecedented access to opportunities and are participating in…
Bandit Bandt and grave robbin’ Albo
It would take a certain kind of malevolence to stand up during a pandemic and float the idea of taxing…
Simpleton central
George Orwell once observed: ‘Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.’ What would Orwell say about Australian…
115 years of the Bondi Surf Bathers' Life Saving Club
On this day 115 years ago, the Bondi Surf Bathers’ Life Saving Club was established, arguably making it the first…
The ‘revolution’ is here and it cannot be censored
It has been a long time coming, but it appears we may be on the precipice of change. For two…
Can New Zealand move on from Covid mandates?
Omicron has arrived in New Zealand. A ‘freedom convoy’ has plonked itself on parliament lawns. As the police struggle to…
Will Putin now roll on to Kiev?
The White House told us with absolute certainty that there would be an invasion of Ukraine this week — instead…
The seismic importance of Putin’s latest move
Vladimir Putin has tonight unilaterally recognised the two breakaway republics in Ukraine. In doing so, he has effectively ended the…
Ending restrictions won't save Boris
Boris Johnson certainly managed to rally the troops on their first day back from recess this afternoon as he told…
Is an anti-Xi resistance emerging?
From the 1980s to 2017, at least every five years, China’s National Party Congress would be a moment of intriguing…
Can New Zealand move on from Covid mandates?
Omicron has arrived in New Zealand. A ‘freedom convoy’ has plonked itself on parliament lawns. As the police struggle to…
Ardern’s Great Kiwi Reset
Jacinda Ardern’s plummeting popularity indicates a country questioning not only her racist white-anting of our democracy, but the hypocrisy of…
In Fortress New Zealand, faith in Saint Jacinda is starting to fade
Wellington Jacinda Ardern recently told an American television host that she finds it ‘slightly offensive’ when outsiders assume…
Dear New Zealand, it’s time to end Covid discrimination
Dear New Zealand, It’s a shame that we as a country have decided to follow a policy of discrimination. Supporting…
Canada’s truckers won’t truck it anymore
The Freedom Convoy is the largest, longest and noisiest honkfest of a demonstration against a Canadian government in decades. It…
Business/Robbery, etc.
OK Macron; you’re right and ScoMo’s wrong on nuclear power – but this time it’s not about submarines. When the…
Boris goes green and goes down the gurgler
I’d like to say I lost confidence in Boris Johnson when he went to the Peppa Pig park. I’ve never…
Two Australias
Australia’s two separate worlds were vividly on display on Saturday, 12 February. In Canberra, tens of thousands of protesters marched…
Covid mania
It was Mad Max meets Mean Girls at the SummerNats, Canberra’s car festival that brings out the hoons. While tens…
Media misfire on the Big Lie
Conservatives are finally wising up about the legacy media. That’s one takeaway from a revealing recent clash between feisty Trump…
Now racism is the root cause of climate change!
Writer on environmental and social justice issues, Jeremy Williams, is just the latest polemicist to claim climate change and racism,…
Racists in the republican ranks
Billed to speak after Tony Abbott in Melbourne recently, I sought inspiration from his foreword years ago to Twilight of…
Die Walküre
Chesterton said – and the poet Peter Porter loved to repeat – that if a thing was worth doing it…
Grace
Does anyone know where we are in the world of arts and entertainment as Omicron advances, boosters abound, RATS are…
Moulin Rouge
It seems an aeon ago, the press night of Moulin Rouge, on 26 November. Since then, there has been illness,…
Don’t Look Up
How strange it is to be in a supposedly opened-up world, even as the Omicron variety of the virus shuts…
Masters of the opium trade: the fabulous wealth of the Sassoons
Just before I started to read this book I had been immersed in the letters written by Jewish merchants based…
From pirates to princes — the heroic transformation of the Normans
The Normans had an astonishingly good run. Not only did they take over England in 1066, of course, but they…
Christina Patterson overcomes family misfortunes
The journalist and broadcaster Christina Patterson’s memoir begins promisingly. She has a talent for vivid visual description, not least: ‘We…
What’s to become of Africa’s teeming youth?
Demographers are attached to their theories. The field’s most enduring is the ‘demographic transition’, whereby modernisation inexorably lowers a society’s…
Inside New India: Run and Hide, by Pankaj Mishra, reviewed
The first novel in more than 20 years from the essayist and cultural analyst Pankaj Mishra is as sharp, provocative…
Playing until her fingers bled: the dedication of the pianist Maria Yudina
The 20th century was an amazing time for Russian pianists, and the worse things got, politically and militarily, the more…
Why did Britain lock up so many innocent refugees in 1940?
Despite prostrate Germany’s need for the return of its men, in Britain we didn’t release our prisoners of war until…
Watcher of the skies: John Constable, painter and meteorologist
A surprising amount of classic painting turns out to have specific, often literary meaning, even in genres which tend to…
