flat white

A book, a calculator and a hip flask

Each year I ponder whether my attendance at the budget lock-up will be my last. Can I really take another…

5 Apr 2025

Faint-hearted

The election is upon us. So if you were looking for a word to describe what Mr Dutton and the…

5 Apr 2025

Thriving on uncertainty

The index spiked to 139 when Russia defaulted in 1998. The 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001 boosted the…

5 Apr 2025

Veneztralia

Following his election as Venezuelan President in 1999, Hugo Chávez launched a series of radical reforms known as the Bolivarian…

Voice by stealth

‘You can’t fatten a pig on market day,’ John Howard would say. As Australia’s longest-serving Liberal prime minister other than…

5 Apr 2025

The carbon crisis

We have a carbon dioxide crisis in Australia. There is not enough of the gas produced locally. We import carbon…

5 Apr 2025

The Carbon Inquisition

It was hidden in one line of Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech. But it is a crucial reason the Albanese…

5 Apr 2025

Albanese’s squalid trickery

Why would Anthony Albanese stoop to such squalid trickery? This stemmed from the recent budget scheduled because Albanese decided that…

5 Apr 2025

In defense of the Disney Adult

For too long derision of the Disney Adult has gone on unchecked. The world has been all too eager to…

6 Apr 2025

Labour MP arrested on suspicion of rape

A former Labour minister was arrested on Friday on suspicion of rape and child sex offences. The Sun on Sunday tonight reports…

6 Apr 2025

Why does Labour assume AI is good?

In close to 30 years in political broadcasting, I’ve never had the faintest idea of what was coming around the…

6 Apr 2025

Why did the BBC say ‘Muslim reverts’?

‘Revert’ as a noun rather than a verb sounds like one of those Victorian terms that went out of fashion…

6 Apr 2025

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307,000 Voices

Growing concerns at the impact of unregulated free speech around the world, and especially in the English-speaking West, are understandable.…

5 Apr 2025

New Zealand’s cringeworthy new tourism slogan

‘Everyone must go!’ New Zealand’s new tourism declares, but so far almost everyone seems to be cringing. The prime minister…

18 Feb 2025

The sacred sites fandango

The second-highest mountain in New Zealand has been granted ‘personhood’ by the NZ parliament because it is regarded as the…

15 Feb 2025

Operation Resolution: cleaning up after HMNZS Manawanui

HMNZS Manawanui, formally a chirpy red and yellow MV Edda Fonn, sank on October 6 much to the shock of…

16 Dec 2024

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Aussie life

It’s hard to imagine climate fanatics smashing roof-loads of solar panels, gluing themselves to wind turbines or scrawling offensive semi-literate…

Language

Are you a ‘pejorist’? I wouldn’t blame you if you were. I am currently reading Melanie Phillips’ brilliant book The…

5 Apr 2025

Am I making a mountain out of my mole?

Hypochondriacs are never happy because we know that eventually all of us are vindicated. As Spike Milligan said on his…

5 Apr 2025

Dear Mary: What is the etiquette of unfollowing someone on Instagram?

Q. When hosting a dinner party, should one circulate the biographies/Wikipedia entries of your guests beforehand so that everyone arrives…

5 Apr 2025

The sin of TDS

You almost have to admire the nerve, the gall, the sheer chutzpah. Here we have a book about the mental…

5 Apr 2025

The Pinochet affair: the pursuit of a Chilean dictator

Calle Londres 38 is the address in Santiago of one of the notorious detention centres where the government of the…

5 Apr 2025

The Da Vinci world of known unknowns

When Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ was sold in 2017 for $450 million it caused a sensation. Dismissed as an…

5 Apr 2025

Doctor, Doctor: the genesis of a national folk hero

John Higgs begins his foray into the long-standing BBC television science fiction series Doctor Who with a personal anecdote about…

5 Apr 2025

Satire and settled scores: Universality by Natasha Brown reviewed

In 2023 Natasha Brown published an article taking the reader behind the scenes of two interviews that she had given…

5 Apr 2025

Tony Benn, bogeyman to some, beacon of hope and light to many

Among the most striking things about Tony Benn was his friendship with Enoch Powell. They entered the House together in…

5 Apr 2025

Murder she imagined: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami reviewed

‘In dreams begins responsibility,’ wrote W.B. Yeats. In the near-future America imagined by Laila Lalami, culpability starts there, too. Charged…

5 Apr 2025

The last of the great salonnières

Lady Pamela Berry (Pam to everyone, so that is what I too shall call her) did many things in her…

5 Apr 2025