Life
Aussie life
In a world of pointless questions like ‘Are tariffs good for me?’ and ‘Why does Kevin Rudd have a beard?’,…
Language
I am frequently asked about the expressions ‘First Nations’ / ‘First Peoples’. And Speccie reader Kay has raised it again,…
Do you ‘damp down’ or ‘tamp down’?
‘Dampfschifffahrt!’ shouted my husband as though it were funny. I had been saying how strange it was that explosive gas…
Why I won’t accept the Laurels of Dante
Dante’s Beach, Ravenna I have just refused to accept the local equivalent of an Oscar, which was to have been…
There are no Ubers in the wilds of West Cork
My American guest kept telling me he was going to call an Uber and I could not persuade him that…
Sole meunière: simple one-pan sophistication
Picture the scene. The year is 2004. The setting, a British field or maybe a beach. There is a small…
The curse of Disney’s Snow White
One of the early decisions David Zaslav made after becoming the CEO of Warner Bros Discovery in 2022 was to…
What’s the point in spending a fortune on a wedding?
I follow the YouTube postings of a maverick young economist called Gary Stevenson, author of The Trading Game. Whatever you…
Dear Mary: How do I stop my husband eavesdropping on my phone calls?
Q. I’m quite a good friend of a member of our royal family – going back to our shared school…
The Berry Bros supremacy
For more than 50 years I have assumed that any sensible person will be a right-winger, even if not all…
Aussie life
When Kermit the Frog told us in 1971 that it’s not easy being green it was meant as a plea…
Language
Speccie reader Joseph has written to ask: What is ‘identity politics’? First, the history. The term ‘identity politics’ is recorded…
Angela Rayner’s war on Britain’s playing fields
With the world on fire – not to mention large swathes of the North Sea – it is understandable that…
