Australia hurtles off the rails
‘Look what’s going on in Australia right now. After a year and a half they are still enforcing lockdowns by…
Euro notes
App-artheid europe Here’s an interesting thought. Imagine Australia’s state premiers were put in charge of Europe. How would our politicians…
Australian notes
The human rights industry exposed If there is one thing this Covid pandemic has shown us it is the hollow…
Heath Ledger
It’s weird to hear news of artistic life in the midst of Covid. The Sydney Theatre Company has a new…
Kiwi Life
A crisis by design It is increasingly sad, so many New Zealanders saying they would leave – if they could…
Kiwi Language
A tech company claims that anti-vax and anti-lockdown rallies have been ‘astroturfed’. Which means? Well, ‘AstroTurf’ was the world’s first…
Aux bien pensants
Aussies kept out, immigrants pour in Thirty-eight thousand citizens still can’t come home. But in 2020-21, the government let in…
Real life
British Gas finally agreed to service my boiler, for no reason I could make out other than the boiler wasn’t…
High life
Do any of you remember the time when everything took place on the terraces and in outdoor cafés? Before everyone…
Barometer
Scummy idea Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner called Tories ‘scum’ in a speech to activists at her party’s conference. The…
Bridge
Online bridge has been a lifeline for many players these past 18 months. But not everyone wanted to try it.…
The turf
My best fun, through ten years reporting European politics for CNN, was bumping around the Continent with sparky young producers…
Business rates reform: for once, a useful Labour idea
A worthwhile policy proposal amid the Labour conference dogfight? Now there’s a surprise. But shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s scheme to…
Hot mess
These days, James Bond can no longer just be the main character in the Bond films. He’s also had to…
Revival of the fittest
In Oliver Mears’s new production of Verdi’s Rigoletto, the curtain rises on a work of art. The stage is in…
High Jencks
An editor once told me: always look at the loos. It was remarkable, she said, how many grand cultural projets,…
The beautiful and damned
Nick Cave has always been drawn to parable and fable, but more than ever these days he is engaged in…
