Australian notes
Selling the dying Great Barrier Reef With the recent A$1billion announced to save the ‘dying’ Great Barrier Reef, I wonder…
Moulin Rouge
It seems an aeon ago, the press night of Moulin Rouge, on 26 November. Since then, there has been illness,…
Aussie Life
The elevation of Dylan Alcott to Australian of the Year is a great win for the disability sector, but threatens…
Aussie Language
As we approach a federal election, for the next few weeks I’ll look at some ‘election lingo’. ballot: Why do…
Time to sit and stare
In 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche made a complaint about the modern world, writing in The Gay Science: Even now one is…
Crisis? What crisis?
When a political party is hit by a crisis, the tendency these days is for both the politicians and their…
Rishi has a horrible task ahead
Whether Rishi Sunak is prime minister or still chancellor this spring, fate is handing him a poisoned chalice. Looking back,…
Oh ambassador, you’re spoiling us
I know the following sentence is going to get me into trouble. Still, there are times when you wonder whether…
Biden’s obnoxious promise
In lauding Joe Biden’s promise to fill the upcoming vacancy on the US Supreme Court with a black woman, last…
Man and superman
The creation of a master race is an ancient idea which, thankfully, can never work, says Sam Leith
Diary
A princess of Hanover wrote in her diary: ‘My 30th birthday. There must be some mistake.’ Substitute 30th for 80th…
High life
Gstaad Joan Didion, who died last December, took herself extremely seriously. American writers tend to do that, especially those…
The beauty of brutalism
Nothing divides the British like modernist architecture. Traditionalists are suspicious of its utopian ambitions and dismiss it as ugly; proponents…
Time for a change
In Competition No. 3234, you were invited to submit either a poem or a short story entitled ‘Covid’s metamorphoses’. Thanks…
Magnus’s tasks
World championship match play has a stony logic, where there are no prizes for glorious endeavour. It calls to mind…
What’s the point of Boris?
The anger against the Prime Minister for failing to observe the rules which he imposed upon the rest of us…
Solution to 2538: Green Light! Cross!
The unclued lights are towns on Gozo (go + zo are defined in the puzzle’s title). Apologies that this crossword…
