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The Spectator

18 March 2023 Aus

Unfairy tales

Leave our fables alone

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Australia

Leading article Australia

Once upon a time

Once upon a time there lived a generation who believed they knew far more about the world than their elders…

Australian Columnists

Brown Study

Brown study

There is so much ill-informed commentary on the proposed Aboriginal Voice and whether it will generate divisive litigation, that it…

Australian Notes

Australian notes

The announcement of the route we will take to acquire nuclear submarines is good only in parts. Down the road…

Australian Features

Features Australia

Oscars of Incompetence

And the award goes to... Jimbo!

Features Australia

JFK knew what a woman is

Kennedy and I would agree on almost everything. Does that make him ‘hard right’?

Features Australia

Tartan trench-warfare

A Christian social conservative to lead Scotland?

Features Australia

Don’t axe QoVax

A priceless biobank with the answers to long Covid is threatened with destruction

Features Australia

Business/Robbery, etc

Union superfunds’ questionable assets need fixing

Features

Features

Who’s next?

Could it be Credit Suisse?

Features

Crash test

We are in a new era of economic uncertainty

Features

Parent trap

The truth about single motherhood

Features

Boys in a bind

Today’s sexual politics is damaging young men

Features

Common knowledge

Why I used to pretend to be working class

Features

Keeping the peace

How Britain can help Taiwan

The Week

Leading article

The missing million

There was plenty of miserable economic news in this week’s Budget: the highest taxes imposed by any peacetime government, the…

Letters

Letters

Channel anger Sir: I fear that in your leading article (‘Our duty to refugees’, 11 March) you find yourself in the…

Columnists

Columns

Restraint now, rewards later?

The paradox of Rishi Sunak’s premiership is that even though he became Prime Minister because of the economy, it’s the…

Columns

The overuse and abuse of ‘fascism’

I would be very happy if I never had to hear the name Gary Lineker again. He was a vague…

Columns

Britain’s invisible East Asians

This week Michelle Yeoh became the first Asian to win Best Actress at the Oscars – and not by playing…

Columns

Who cares what Gary says?

There was a kind of peak BBC Radio 4 moment last week when the network put on a play called…

Books

Australian Books

Voicing doubt

When it comes to the Voice, Anthony Albanese is breaking all the rules for successfully changing the constitution. First, he…

More from Books

Pursued by demons

After his mother’s murder, the teenage Ellroy seemed lost to speed and alcohol – until his discovery of crime writing led to a different addiction

More from Books

Strange meeting

When distraught teenage Orla embarks on a secret pilgrimage to her mother’s grave, she meets a ‘mad hairy’ man with miraculous powers

More from Books

A saint on the move

St Cuthbert’s body, rescued from the ‘devilish Danes’, is carried for hundreds of years to its eventual shrine in Durham cathedral

More from Books

Back with a vengeance

Benjamin Netanyahu has won a staggering sixth term in office – but his alliance with the disreputable right is inching Israel close to catastrophe

More from Books

The curious life of a curate

The Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie regales us with stories of mistaken identity, hymns with erotic undertones and an archbishop’s surprising take on Lenten penance

More from Books

Nothing really matters

A mathematics professor, who specialises in the idea of nothing, is approached by a would-be Bond villain with a dastardly plan of annihilation

More from Books

Promises, promises

But the big ideas seem mainly to consist in acquiring new skills – like boxing and baking – and flexing the imagination muscle

More from Books

The argument that never ends

Nicholas Spencer insists they are – and his scientific knowledge is impressive. But do his religious arguments carry weight?

Lead book review

In the steps of the Master

Philip Hensher follows Noël Coward from precocious childhood to the vortex of fame

Arts

Australian Arts

Deathless dag

You need only pick up Tim Robertson’s Reliques/Pomes to know that you’re in the presence of a man with an…

Classical

Max factor

The German composer Max Reger, born 150 years ago next week, is mostly remembered today for countless elephantine fugues and…

Theatre

Anything goes

Further than the Furthest Thing is an allegorical play set on a remote island populated by English-speakers from all over…

Pop

Feelgood fury

There are several reasons why Young Fathers currently feel like the most exciting live band in Britain, but for now…

Radio

Moomin minded

One of the lesser-known schools of modern philosophy is the Philosophy of Moomin. Like Cynicism or Epicureanism, it is difficult…

Dance

Turbo-charged Tiler

The death last week at the age of 83 of the sublime Lynn Seymour – muse to Ashton and MacMillan,…

Cinema

Alan key

Allelujah, based on the stage play by Alan Bennett, is set in a geriatric ward in a Yorkshire hospital and…

Television

A Rock and a hard place

Chris Rock was paid $20 million for his 70-minute Netflix special, so by my reckoning his riff on whether or…

Exhibitions

The bowl and the bottle

Lucie Rie had no time for high-flown talk about the art of ceramics. ‘I like to make pots – but…

Arts feature

Morse mania

As the cult series draws to its conclusion, Tanya Gold travels to Morsefest in Oxford
to meet the detective’s devoted followers

Life

Aussie Life

Aussie life

A new Arts policy has been released to help raise the creative standard just as a balding redhead called Ed…

Aussie Life

Language

The word ‘manifestation’ has been part of the English language since the 1400s. It comes from the verb ‘to manifest’…

Food

Call that Nice?

Mister Nice is not so much a restaurant as a pre-dawn thought flung into the drag between Piccadilly Circus and…

More from life

Kugelhopf

Yeast scares even some of the most proficient cooks. I know home cooks and professionals alike, food writers and fanatics,…

Spectator sport

Hammered by the French

Rejoice, as you don’t normally say after a hammering like the peerless French dished out to England at Twickenham. But…

No sacred cows

When is a crime not a crime?

On Monday, Suella Braverman published draft guidance designed to rein in the police habit of recording a ‘non-crime hate incident’…

Crossword solution

Solution to 2593: Capital Development

1A, 7A, 18A, 40A, 46A and 47A are all on the new Elizabeth Line, which appears in the grid when…

Crossword

2596: Charades

Unclued lights provide three definitions each of a whole word and of its two syllables. Solvers should highlight the word…

Competition

Let us pray

In Competition No. 3290, you were invited to recast the Lord’s Prayer as a sonnet. The late Frank Kermode reckoned…

Wild life

Wild life

When Wilfred Thesiger arrived in the port of Al Mukalla after his foot crossing of the Empty Quarter desert with…

Real life

Real life

After they banned horses from the village green and surrounding common land, I set about trying to find out why,…

Low life

Low life

‘They say they can’t do it tomorrow. The papers haven’t come.’ Catriona, just back from the village, was shouting up…