Tax demand
From ‘Lenders and taxpayers’, The Spectator, 3 February 1917: As to the general financial soundness of the country there can be…
Australian letters
Hotspots Sir: No less than sixteen UN member nations formally ‘forbid Israeli passport holders to enter’. It is, I think,…
Letters
Going Dutch Sir: As a Dutch man who lives in Britain, I found it heartening to read two such different…
Portrait of the week
Trump news Theresa May, the Prime Minister, let it be known that she was ‘very happy’ about having extended an…
Indigenous indulgences
I acknowledge the Aboriginal peoples who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I live. I pay my…
Time to switch off SBS
The impending retirement of ABC chairman, Jim Spigelman, presents Malcolm Turnbull with an ideal opportunity to shake up the country’s…
Teaching history
Australia Day always brings out the whingers, the whiners, the crazy Invasion Day anti-nationalists and the almost equally crazy flag-draped…
Dumbing down NSW
What do Mary Durack, Christina Stead, A. B. Facey, Xavier Herbert, Les Murray, Thomas Keneally and Clive James have in…
Addicted to outrage
Outrage is the new normal. Sparking outrage − for whatever reason − is the new sin. The number of lazy…
More divisive than Trump
Often, the tone words are delivered in is equally, if not more important, than the words themselves. It’s hardly surprising,…
Hull’s a poppin’
In early January, lastminute.com recommended its top 15 destinations for 2017. In 12th spot, just above Montreal, Croatia and Japan,…
Metal fatigue
‘All that glisters is not gold,’ wrote Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice), and you have to hand it to the…
Seeing everything in black and white
Two divergent approaches to printmaking are on view in an exhibition of graphic work by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud…
Notes on a scandal
Kids: who’d have them? Certainly no one who has ever been to the opera. If they’re not murdering you, they’re…
Sign of the times
As if on cue, The World At One on Monday (Radio 4) ended with a short (too short) interview with…
The real George III
Before he died aged 44 (probably of a pulmonary embolism, poor chap), Frederick, Prince of Wales, compiled a list of…
Playing dead
It could be the nuttiest idea ever. The protagonist of this American musical is Death, who secretly reprieves a beautiful…
Bankstown lefty
For Paul Keating, there have always been two kinds of politics: ‘high tone’ and ‘low rent’. High tone was to…
Brown study
A few weeks ago I told you about two particularly nasty and brutal attacks on our local jewelry store in…
Jason Chong & Mark Leonard Winter in Chimerica
This is one for the brighter kids in the class. Chimerica by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood was first produced by…
Deplorable notes
Welcome-ish news from the Australian last week: ‘With the Syrian rebel front crumbling under the combined might of a Russian…
Australian notes
Invasion of the farm snatchers As part of its curious strategy of attacking its base, the Turnbull government seems intent…
Dealing with Trump
The good news is that the Turnbull government is gradually adapting to the fact that Hillary Clinton didn’t win the…
Agonised questions
It’s terribly difficult to write a novel about soul-searching, and Elif Shafak has come up with a rather clever device…
The lure of the desert
The great deserts of the world hold a compelling attraction for a rare breed of men who are ‘unwise and…
