Diary Australia

Australian diary

19 July 2024 11:00 pm

I was rather pleased to be pulled aside by Australian Border Force when I arrived in Brisbane as a guest…

Christmas Diary

16 December 2023 9:00 am

We’re home for the holidays. My wife insists: ‘We live in a resort!’ The neighbour’s roof is in front of…

Moroccan diary

24 June 2023 9:00 am

Most Australians know little about Morocco because it’s one of those places that rarely makes the news. Not much goes…

Mombasa diary

25 February 2023 9:00 am

Kenya’s second-largest city, Mombasa, is the sprawling home of some 3.5 million people on the nation’s east coast. Situated on…

Christmas diary

17 December 2022 9:00 am

Shock! I’ve found a bomb in my library. My sanctuary. My hermitage. I’d hauled down a book of essays one…

London diary

9 July 2022 9:00 am

Confirmation that we had finally left Australia’s increasingly stultifying wokeness behind came when our Qantas jet touched down in Singapore.…

London diary

4 June 2022 9:00 am

Two years away from London due to Covid. Our Bloomsbury flat has been empty all that time. Probably possible to…

A woke diary

22 January 2022 9:00 am

The Covid lockdown has confined me to the house for long periods. My wife is downstairs working on a new…

Sydney diary

15 January 2022 9:00 am

The Test matches between Australia and England in Australia have not been much of a test of the Australian side.…

Christmas diary

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Christmas staff parties. Who goes with Christmassy joy, not apprehension or a need to ‘show your face’? I’m just back…

Quarantine diary

26 June 2021 9:00 am

After 404 days in solitary as a guest of Her Majesty, I was loath to spend a fortnight in institutional…

Christmas diary

19 December 2020 9:00 am

My Christmas present to myself is a new life. I’ve always wondered what I will do when I grow up,…

Quarantine diary

21 November 2020 9:00 am

I am now halfway into my 14-day internment in the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility, located in the Top End, a…

Diary

17 October 2020 9:00 am

Gulag survivor and author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can’t…

NT diary

22 August 2020 9:00 am

The murranji frog is a desert amphibian that can survive long stretches without water. It is an apt name for…

Easter diary

24 April 2020 11:00 pm

Chocolate eggs still. Tick. Roast dinner still. Tick. Church still. Tick. But as if in a strange, distorting dream. This…

Diary

18 April 2020 9:00 am

What a difference a few months makes. At the close of last year, all the talk in the United Kingdom…

Des Moines diary

29 February 2020 9:00 am

As is obvious from recent events, we live in times where it is not enough to disagree with someone and…

Summer diary

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Excuse me for starting on a flat note. On my mind this Christmas is that Australia’s most famous living Christian…

Diary

30 November 2019 9:00 am

The words on the roadside hoarding capture the spirit of Singapore. ‘Let’s make Singapore our garden,’ they proclaim. Kilometre after…

England diary

16 November 2019 9:00 am

In two recent visits to England, the ostensibly Conservative government has allowed the Extinction Rebellion extremists to shut down central…

Pearl Harbor

2 November 2019 9:00 am

The Punchbowl in Honolulu, Hawaii is a place of reverence in which 34,000 American battle-dead are interred. Battlefield remains are…

Diary

26 October 2019 9:00 am

I flew into a tempest. Although still early autumn, wild, windy and wet weather ravaged the UK, causing traffic chaos…

Diary

19 October 2019 9:00 am

Despite the old saying and the best efforts of Qantas, you can go home again, even if home is New…

Spanish diary

28 September 2019 9:00 am

My choice of newspapers was limited. Given my little Spanish, the New York Times was always going to win out…