As West Ham go for dull David Moyes, football badly needs more Pep talks
So West Ham took the least surprising option and sent for David Moyes. Same old same old. I have a…
Mary solves your problems: A family friend stays over all the time – but never actually asks us out
Q. We have a family friend we don’t see nearly as much as we’d like. This is because he’s so…
This new Bake Off diner is just half-baked Hollywood
Knead is the first of Paul Hollywood’s new strain of bakeries that sell coffee, and which will encircle capitalism. This…
Is your conduct unacceptably inappropriate – or inappropriately unacceptable?
‘When is physical contact “unacceptable”?’ asked Charles Moore in the Daily Telegraph. He may well ask. Sir Michael Fallon said…
A teacher tweets
A high-tech revolution is taking place in the world of teaching, but it’s not about AI or virtual reality or…
Pilgrim’s notes
Black paintings and missing uncle bill You know you live in relatively peaceful times when an insurrection leads to little…
Climate games
Who do you suppose wrote this? ‘The changing climate is causing great damage to people and planet right now, and…
Even worse in WA
We all know that the Liberal party MPs are in a world of pain. The polls are diabolical. Political death…
Author’s diary
Author tours are funny things, especially when unexpected. 12 months ago, I’d given up on getting Kingdom of the Wicked…
Fellow citizens
The High Court’s decision last month to disqualify five federal parliamentarians for being dual citizens represents the worst excesses of…
Consider this…
Western Civilisation Of late, Western Civilisation has been copping a lot of flack. It seems that the West is to…
The deep swamp
Bill and Hillary Clinton are not unlike Lord and Lady Macbeth. For the better part of twenty-five years these two…
Jan de Bray “The governors of the Guild of St Luke, Haarlem” 1675
The Dutch Republic in the 17th century was surprisingly exciting and is now known as the Dutch Golden Age. Newly…
Sacrificial notes
To the Sun Goddess Wong Visiting Canada, I could not fail but note the absence of any significant campaign to…
New Year’s election?
What a mess; and, for once, it didn’t start with Malcolm Turnbull. The citizenship fiasco is a consequence of the…
Trump notes
Trump’s America is doing better than it seems The other week I was trying to elicit some interest in politics…
Too controversial to debate: IQ and learning
Deplatforming has again become an issue after Teach First, a UK not-for-profit organisation that recruits teachers from other academic disciplines,…
A dangerous pride: Australia’s misunderstood gun laws
In the wake of the most atrocious shooting spree ever seen in the US, we’ve witnessed a spree of another…
A very special day in the death of Fairfax
The regulators have approved the spin-off and separate listing of Domain. It’s now time to crash The Sydney Morning Herald…
The Sydney University protection racket
This is outrageous. Sydney University is not betraying the most fundamental ideals of the academy. Why, it’s even contradicting its…
The conception of modern Israel: remembering the centenary of the Balfour Declaration
Great moments in history are sometimes defined by a piece of paper, in this case, a letter penned from one…
Another ATSIC will also fail
Malcolm Turnbull has firmly, definitely, declared there would be no Referendum on the plans to establish a constitutionally enshrined indigenous…
The death of sex
This morning I witnessed a violent rape. And I’m pretty sure she hadn’t been asking for it. I know this…
Dinosaurs and deplorables
As a former state moderator of the Presbyterian Church, it was with a touch of sadness that I read a…
As The Donald might say, sad
ABC News — the American ABC News — reports: A year after his surprise election victory, President Donald Trump is underperforming expectations…
