Life
Aussie life
The vote to cut HECs debt just went through parliament. Clever politics targeting the youth vote yet all I remember…
Language
A Speccie reader (Noel) wants to know if the media is using ‘decimated’ correctly, when a commenter calls on Hamas…
Aussie life
One Sunday morning in 1952, the pilot of a light aircraft flying low over the Pilbara looked down and saw…
Language
Our esteemed editor asks about the word ‘irits’. Is it, he asks, British or American or authentically Aussie. The good…
Vodka that makes an excellent aperitif
Jack Gervaise-Brazier is a restless romantic. He was brought up on Guernsey, which filled him with a love of islands,…
My plan for a wealth tax – with a difference
Reading Careless People, an exposé of life within Facebook written by a Kiwi, it occurred to me that one potential…
Dear Mary: How do we avoid having dinner with our new cruise friends every night?
Q. My twins’ birthday is coming up, but we will be in the country. Their godparents are usually punctilious, but…
What does the ‘100’ emoji actually mean?
When this century began we were complaining (or I was) of the ubiquity of absolutely to signal agreement. The interjection…
The drama of an Irish supermarket car park
The woman pushing a wheelchair was causing such a rumpus in the supermarket that whichever aisle I was in I…
How Italy’s ‘new young’ party
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna The Feast of the Assumption began for me just after midnight with a WhatsApp message from my…
Spectator Competition: Category error
Comp. 3413 was prompted by J.G. Ballard’s story ‘The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race’…
What to do with the last of the summer’s apples
The double-edged sword of eating with the seasons is the glut. A blunt, un-pretty word, which is a joy in…
Save our swearing!
Last week I took a day trip to Margate. Not to enjoy a swim in the sea, but in the…
Aussie life
A strange thing happened recently on a bright and peaceful Sunday morning in Bleak City, aka the once-great Melbourne. I…
Language
The online world breeds some very strange bits of language, and none are stranger than the word ‘catfishing’. This names…
‘Italian that just works’: Broadwick Soho reviewed
This column sometimes shrieks the death of central London, and this is unfair. (I think this because others are now…
Wormwood Scrubs, my deserted little bit of paradise
On the face of it, Wormwood Scrubs is not particularly appealing. I don’t mean the prison, but the common in…
Dear Mary: how can I set my daughter up with a nice young man?
Q. I am soon to entertain a house party on a sporting estate. We took the same house last year…
Nothing can save Test cricket
Forgive me if I don’t join the general ‘Make mine a treble’ hoo-ha about the future of Test cricket after…
