The Star of David and the ‘True Blue’ Christmas
Bondi Beach mass shooting terror attack: what we know so far
Details remain unconfirmed, but what we know for certain is that Australia will never be the same after this. Bondi…
One Nation’s conservative conversion
There are rumours that One Nation is head-hunting another two Coalition members. If true, this is Reform behaviour. Nigel Farage’s…
Frosty relations
Treasurer Jim Chalmers made a song and dance about Antarctic investment earlier in December, obscuring the deteriorating situation in Australia’s…
Blood and circuses
The scary corners of the internet are going mainstream, not because they have moderated their rhetoric, but rather our government…
What went wrong, Albanese?
To the Prime Minister. Dear Sir, I write this letter as an older, but still patriotic, Australian who passionately loves…
Net Zero on energy promises
As we wind down to the dawn of a new year, it’s worth recapping how Labor has delivered ‘Net Zero’…
This is not what it seems
Australia does not have a Jewish problem. It has a problem with how a confident society protects its citizens when…
The Star of David and the ‘True Blue’ Christmas
The Star of David is, without doubt the most well-recognised symbol for modern-day Judaism. The two interlocking triangles forming a…
Ideology, the curse of our era
It is difficult to write about tragedies that take away innocent lives and affect countless others. Perpetrated by the few,…
When light meets darkness
The final night of Chanukah always coincided with the Hebrew birthday of my late grandmother, Bubba, and so that was…
Feeling unwelcome in my country
I am feeling increasingly unwelcome in the country of my birth, as I am subjected to ubiquitous welcomes to and…
Australia’s managed fragmentation
Australians are living in a time of genuine civic peril. Since 9/11, successive governments have pursued an administrative model of…
Savage words, savage deeds
Locally sourced ranting is a problem. This is where a particular subject – say the current US President – leads…
Under 16 social media ban isolates teens with medical conditions
I was born with a rare disorder 54 years ago, and for 43 of those years I felt like an…
Can Albo deflect his way out of this one?
Let’s talk about Bondi. More specifically, the reaction to Bondi. The dust has settled and the politicking has begun. Let’s…
A holy night for nostalgia and self-reflection
Christmas is one time of the year where it is okay to let nostalgia off the chain. I like to…
A Traveller’s tales
Back in Australia after six months in England and America. London packed with tourists but overall is more depressing than…
The name’s Allan, James Allan
‘The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced…
Gallows state
Iran is experiencing one of its deadliest waves of executions since the 1979 revolution. A tactic once used to instil…
Fictionomics Awards
Allow me offer you a sobering thought before you reach for the Esky. The social cost of alcohol in Australia…
Tucker Qatarlson’s Christmas carol
My dreaming of a white Christmas was rudely interrupted by a social media post containing a guide for antisemites on…
Travels in Transylvania
It’s not often that Tripadvisor suggests you stay at a hotel owned by His Majesty the King of Australia. But…
Bring on 2026!
I’m a glass-half-full kind of person. That doesn’t mean I always have half a glass of something in my hand;…
The grift that keeps on grifting
Australia’s retreat from hosting Cop31 has sparked disappointment and relief in equal measure, the relief being that the nation has…
How a late lunch can save Britain
Britain doesn’t have a productivity problem. We have a productivity mystery. The financial crisis was 17 years ago but still…
Bondi Beach and Australia’s failed multiculturalism
I knew two of the people murdered at Bondi Beach. That beach has always felt like Australia distilled: sun-bleached, open,…
It’s hard to take the Palestine Action hunger strikers seriously
The phrase ‘the silly led by the sinister’ was originally used by the late, singularly great Christopher Hitchens to describe…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
The de-Wokification of New Zealand’s education system
The conservative coalition government of New Zealand came to office promising to wind back an enormous, government-run system of ‘Woke’…
Jacinda, Jacinta
I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders. I had briefly considered dipping into…
The end of the climate cult
The full range of diversions
Who can say what a world of Christmases will unfold this year? Sir Keir Starmer was knighted for services to…
The sheer scope of his work
When Tom Stoppard, playwright extraordinaire, was at the early height of his fame, with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in…
Confused and cumbersome
Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of that dazzling dramatic opera Carmen at Melbourne’s Regent was sometimes lit like a Christmas tree, sometimes…
Pit full of snakes
What a cheering thing it is that David Szalay has won the Booker Prize for Flesh which is a masterpiece…
AI, a near miss, and a pleasing history
Books about Australia’s past can easily turn into battlefields, and many commentators expected Tony Abbott’s Australia: A History (HarperCollins, $35)…
Songs of murder, rape and desertion
A century ago, the Orkney poet George Mackay Brown was settling into his first term at Stromness Academy. His schooldays…
The evasions of smalltown Alabama: The Land of Sweet Forever, by Harper Lee, reviewed
Harper Lee’s writing career was brief, but her single novel became one of the most famous in American history. To…
Rory Stewart’s romantic view of Cumbria is wide of the mark
It’s tricky for writers to gather up pieces of old work and collect them in significant literary form. It’s risky…
Peril in Prague: The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown, reviewed
Robert Langdon is a symbologist, and that is the meta joke – the only joke – of Dan Brown’s series…
Cosy crime for Christmas: a choice of thrillers
Christmas is prime time for cosy crime and the excellent thriller writer Nicola Upson offers a short, pleasing contribution with…
The little imps who pretended to be poltergeists
It comes as a surprise for anyone assuming that ghosthunters are easily fooled scaredy cats to learn that there was…
The cartographer’s power to decide the fate of millions
I had searched for it for the better part of 20 years. An enormous trove of lost maps, the 800…