For the love of gin
I’d missed the train, and the next was due in 45 minutes, so I popped into the nearby salon for…
Is it easier to leave the EU than Norton AntiVirus?
Leaving Norton, the antivirus software package, is a bit like trying to leave the EU. You may think, once you…
Bridge
Anyone who doubts that bridge keeps your brain sharp in old age should have a game with Bernard Teltcher. Bernard…
Peaceful solution
In the recent super-tournament in St Louis, Magnus Carlsen, Fabiano Caruana and Lev Aronian opted to share the laurels. According to…
no. 522
White to play. This position is a variation from Caruana-Karjakin, St Louis 2018. Can you spot White’s classic mating finish?…
Living dangerously
In Competition No. 3064 you were invited to supply a newspaper leading article exposing the hitherto unsuspected corrupting influence of…
2375: 2
2 describes a pair of unclued lights (three words altogether), which in turn include the others. Across 12 Single…
2372: Spot-on
The key phrase is LIKE A TANSY (39). The scientific name of the tansy is TANACETUM VULGARE (4A 12); remaining…
The neo-Marxist takeover of our universities
According to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, America’s universities have succumbed to ‘safetyism’, whereby students are protected from anything that…
So farewell, Alastair Cook: a wonderful cricketer and exemplary sportsman
I first became aware of Alastair Cook in the Ashes summer of 2005 when he was named the Young Cricketer…
Dear Mary: I can’t put names to faces – and it’s starting to upset friends
Q. I am in my mid-sixties and have started to suffer from nominal aphasia. At a recent wedding in the…
I am served up a crime against breakfast: Sketch reviewed
Sketch is a restaurant and art gallery in Conduit Street, Mayfair. There is a photograph of the Queen in the…
Optics: stingy pub measures and politicians’ images
If you’d like to buy a copy of Newton’s Opticks: or, A Treatise of the Reflexions, Refractions, Inflexions and Colours…
It was 10 years ago today…
I have been a regular to semi-regular writer for The Spectator Australia pretty much from the start and for all…
Michael Fabiano
There will be a lot going on at Opera Australia in 2019 with arguably the most interesting repertoire for a…
Brown study
When Robert Rintoul founded The Spectator in 1828, he began what is now the oldest publication in the English language.…
Right-of-return notes
The Great Disrupter For decades the world has infantilised the Palestinians, calling them refugees when they are not refugees; justifying…
Latham’s law
Julia Gillard called it hyper-bowl. Last week Niki Savva turned it into an art form when she described the end…
Plus ça change…
I was stopped at the pub a few weeks ago by a middle-aged bloke, who identified himself to me as…
10 years, covered
One of the great joys of editing The Spectator Australia is seeing – late on a Wednesday evening – the…
Dis-con notes
Does Morrison cut the mustard? The first quality Napoleon Bonaparte sought in his generals was that they were lucky. Scott…
Business/Robbery etc
It’s the customary corporate cop-out. Big business these days is more risk-averse than entrepreneurial. So the business lobby groups have…
Writer’s notes
On writing Every writer writes an ‘on writing’ piece. So here’s mine. Last week in Melbourne, I went to a…
Reincarnation of the elites
Compliant always with John O’Sullivan’s First Law that all organisations not actively leaning right will, over time, become left-wing, The…
