Biblical
Matthew Sadler was the star of the evening on the night of the Royal Automobile Club annual dinner which I…
no. 505
White to play. This is from Sadler-Speelman, 4NCL 2017. White is two pawns down in this endgame but all Black’s…
Between the lines
In Competition No. 3047 you were invited to supply an imaginary testimonial for a high-profile figure that is superficially positive…
2358: Poem IV
Unclued lights are words from a poem, its author and a relevant location. Elsewhere, ignore two accents. Across 7 …
to 2355: A Poet Skylarking
13 1A 23 22 is from SHELLEY’S ‘Ode to a Skylark’. Other unclued lights had ‘a poet hidden in the…
What the education system needs is more marketisation, not less
Towards the end of 2009, shortly after I announced my intention to set up England’s first free school, I debated…
Forget your data – it’s your DNA privacy you should be worried about
Nearly ten years ago, a lorry driver known only as ‘Michael Harry K’ adopted an extreme response to combating what…
Dear Mary: How can I pin down flakey party-goers?
Q. My 50th birthday is looming and I am hosting a small dinner in a restaurant. This has proved challenging…
How I found curry heaven in deepest Mayfair: Indian Accent reviewed
Indian Accent is an Indian restaurant in Albermarle Street, deepest Mayfair, on the site of Rohit Khattar’s Chor Bizarre (‘thieves…
Paranoia and The Woman in White
I sat up with a jerk, after contemplating the wallpaper in the television dramatisation of The Woman in White, when…
Giving my all for Cox
A federal redistribution in underway and heading towards completion in Victoria next month. Much interest has been given to the…
Embrace our blessings: unlock Australia’s natural gas reserves
For far too long, governments in Australia have treated the issue of liberalising gas extraction like a hot potato –…
Simon Collins
Even Australians who consider the Commonwealth Games a meaningless anachronism must have been pleased with our team’s performance last month.…
Evil vs dumb
The great US columnist Charles Krauthammer once noted this truth about contemporary political life in America: ‘To understand the workings…
Little Alfie
The questions around little baby Alfie’s death aren’t going to go away. They raise a timely and extremely important issue.…
Mr Morrison’s budget gamble
A broken clock is right twice a day. When it comes to accuracy and reliability, that’s infinitely better than federal…
Observations from the grave
This is the winner of the 2017 Spectator Australia Thawley Essay Prize, the theme of which was ‘The great Australian…
Girls at the Piano
We need to remind ourselves that there was once a time when there were no Keynesian socialist bureaucracies determining ‘cultural…
Feeling Carr-sick
What gives with Bob Carr? Why, for that matter, has so much of the Left in the democratic world turned…
Translating Energyspeak
A little over a decade ago former Labor speechwriter Don Watson wrote a series of books bemoaning the decay of…
Brown study
You might remember that a year ago I criticised the decision of the Victorian government to settle a court action…
Aux bien pensants
Beria born again in the usa You could have thought the central feature of French President Macron‘s visit to Australia…
Be very careful what you’re consenting to
Every single human being should be concerned about the current push to review sexual consent laws. Earlier this week the…
Let’s rethink relationships
Life is nothing without the relationships cultivated between friends, family, and acquaintances. Relationships are the foundation for a productive society,…
