Latham’s law
The Dick Denniss Doctrine When Newcastle was founded in 1801, known initially as the Coal Harbour Penal Settlement, the convicts…
Euro notes
Europe’s political cross-dressers A good Tony Abbott story is that early during his time as an MP, he did a…
Professional sports are the wokest of them all
How activism is destroying sports and sports journalism
Berlin
Theatre is slowly, tentatively opening up again and there’s no denying that a good play with however small a cast…
She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism
Art movements and fashions may come and go but Australians love of their impressionists seems only to grow stronger. The…
Aussie life
In a recent edition of The Drum on the ABC, host Ellen Fanning addressed the issue of Aboriginal deaths in…
Aussie language
The Root is an African American online magazine that breaks astonishing news. While the rest of the world is worried…
Communing with a great artist
Great books make genres jump. It happened with W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn, which looked like a travelogue, claimed…
Less than angelic
Vicars, tea parties and village fetes were a far cry from Barbara Pym’s early enthusiasms, Philip Hensher reveals
A worthy winner
To an observant outsider, the Soviets might have appeared to have developed an oddly intolerant attitude towards stray dogs. Every…
The great adventuress
At the masquerade celebrating the end of the War of Austrian Succession no one could take their eyes off the…
Puzzle no. 649
White to play. Van Wely–Shimanov, March 2021. White has several tempting options here, but one move is much stronger than…
Everyday inspiration
‘One of the nicest things about being a writer,’ Shirley Jackson once noted in a lecture titled ‘How I Write’,…
The worst of times
Not long ago, a group of psychologists analysing data about national happiness discovered that the British were at their unhappiest…
Theatre’s final taboo – fun
The stage has become a pleasure-free zone in which snarling dramatists fight over their pet political causes, says Lloyd Evans
Where to start with Ethel Smyth
I’m reminded of an old Irish joke. A tourist approaches a local for directions to Dublin. The local, after much…
A dish served very hot
Promising Young Woman is a rape-revenge-thriller that has already proved divisive but is a wonderfully clever, darkly funny, stomach-knotting —…
Ill-judged sanctimony
I’m really not enjoying Your Honor, the latest vehicle for Bryan Cranston to play a good man driven to the…
