No, inequality is not discrimination
Welcome to the University Australia
In their 1976 classic Hotel California, The Eagles sang of a haunted hotel where “you can check out any time…
No, inequality is not discrimination
A problem misdiagnosed is a problem mistreated. Many people today assume without question that all inequality is the result of…
Cook statue vandalism: one of these reports is not like the others
In the early hours of yesterday, the statue of Captain James Cook in Sydney’s Hyde Park was vandalised, allegedly by…
Uproar in Danandrewstan: the inside story (or not)
The following is a transcript of an interview with Chairman Dan Andrews conducted by Fake News late on Sunday evening…
Ultimo must fall
Over the weekend, we saw police officers being punched, kicked and spat on. We saw riots, looting, property destroyed and…
Goodbye Giants, but I don’t need your virtue signalling
Dear Tony I have enclosed my 2019 GWS Premium Membership Card which you might like to pass onto one of…
Quick, we must rename Darwin!
The Black Lives Matter movement sweeping the globe has led to statues of controversial historical figures like slave traders and…
They know nothing
So, now we are apparently living in what is called a “cancel culture”. Removing historical TV shows and movies will not help anyone in trying to…
COVID and the left: you can’t rally, but we can riot
Are you ready for the second blame wave? As the country braces itself for an inevitable repeat surge in COVID-19…
Society isn’t systemically racist. It is systemically woke
Structural, systemic, systematically — we’re hearing these words a lot at the moment. Racism isn’t individual. It is structural or…
Boris’s gender change shake-up leaves Labour with a difficult choice
The Sunday Times says Boris Johnson is going to reject May-era proposals to allow people to “self-identify” changes of their…
11 people who should have statues
The Black Lives Matter movement and the ‘Topple the Racists’ campaign have reminded us that monuments in public spaces can…
Don’t mention this article on your smart phone
While Chinese propaganda depicts Westerners reading bedtime stories to their children about the wonders of President Xi’s One Belt; One…
Weak men, hard times
Kudos to a writer you’ve probably never heard of – G. Michael Hopf – who has recently written an aphorism…
Magical thinking
The third horseman of the American Apocalypse is expected to arrive this month. Pandemics and race wars will pass, but…
Black lives damaged
Broadway is still in lockdown, but across America the show must go on. For the last fortnight, Black Lives Matter…
Blacktivists ignore the real plight of indigenous Australia
For a perfect illustration of how self-delusional, ineffective and irrational ‘woke’ generations are, go no further that the mass rallies…
Business/Robbery etc
Don’t hold your breath waiting. It will be many years – if ever – before there is any prospect of…
Say it ain’t so, Joe
A dozen years ago we attended the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee in Washington. For the centenary function…
The horse has bolted and the emperor has no clothes
‘The Emperor has no clothes’. This expresses, in literary terms, the overwhelming view of the nation. Australians have been outraged…
Richard Tognetti
This week the Australia Chamber Orchestra should have been delighting audiences with their usual brilliant performances to celebrate the 30th…
Belgravia
Belgravia is the rather coldly beautiful residential part of London bounded by Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Buckingham Palace. It is also…
Sydney Opera House during Vivid Sydney Festival
To state the obvious, these are extremely testing times for the performing arts and live entertainment generally. Although galleries are…
Cover of May issue of Apollo
We are all being digitised one way or another. Performing arts companies, not able to perform, are gamely putting themselves…
Ireland through the eyes of a brilliant teenage naturalist
Dara McAnulty is a teenage naturalist from Northern Ireland. He has autism; so do his brother, sister and mother —…
The cure becomes the problem: The Seduction, by Joanna Briscoe, reviewed
Beth, the protagonist of Joanna Briscoe’s The Seduction, reminded me of Clare in Tessa Hadley’s debut, Accidents in the Home.…
Science and philanthropy meet in the Royal Society of Arts
What does Jony Ive, the designer of Apple’s iPhone, have in common with Peter Perez Burdett, the first Englishman to…
Northern noir: The Mating Habits of Stags, by Ray Robinson, reviewed
It is winter in north Yorkshire. On the brink of New Year, Jake, a laconic, isolated former farmhand in his…
Tree-ring analysis has solved many historical mysteries
History is only as good as its sources. It is limited largely to what has survived of written records, and…
Our recent stockpiling is nothing to what ‘preppers’ lay in store
This book could not have been published at a better time — nor, in a way, at a worse time.…
The fitness fetish: The Motion of the Body Through Space, by Lionel Shriver, reviewed
In her 2010 novel So Much for That, Lionel Shriver examined the American healthcare system with a spiky sensitivity. Big…
The end of capitalism has been just around the corner for centuries
These days the world seems to end with staggering regularity. From the financial crisis to Brexit to Trump to a…