Dishlickers’ delight
‘The world has gone mad. Donald Trump is president of the United States and now Reverend Fred Nile is strolling…
Back in the USSR
For much of 1517 Michelangelo Buonarroti was busy quarrying marble in the mountains near Carrara. From time to time, however,…
All bark and no bite
A Monster Calls is a fantasy drama about a young boy whose life is crap, basically. His mother is sick.…
Deplorable entertainment
Buried Child is a typical Sam Shepard play. The main character, Dodge, is a brain-damaged alcoholic cripple stuck in a…
Deplorable entertainment
Buried Child is a typical Sam Shepard play. The main character, Dodge, is a brain-damaged alcoholic cripple stuck in a…
Chance would be a fine thing
It’s been a turbulent year, and not just in the outside world. Inside radio, digital is changing not just when…
Chance would be a fine thing
It’s been a turbulent year, and not just in the outside world. Inside radio, digital is changing not just when…
Beijing diary
Standing next to the large lobby Christmas tree in ‘Sunjoy Mansion’ where the Australian has its modest office in Beijing,…
Consider this…
Integration is backPeter Dutton has signalled that provisional migrants should be treated as temporary residents until they have ‘proven their…
Consider this…
Integration is backPeter Dutton has signalled that provisional migrants should be treated as temporary residents until they have ‘proven their…
Bridge
There are an awful lot of bridge babies in the world — that is, babies born to mothers so addicted…
Kettles and chooks
After 2016, one of the most lacklustre, uneventful and stagnant years in Australian political history, there is every reason to…
Kettles and chooks
After 2016, one of the most lacklustre, uneventful and stagnant years in Australian political history, there is every reason to…
Will disgruntlement prevail again in 2017? Who knows, but at least 2016 was quite fun
Most of my predictions for 2016 were wrong; so let’s not revisit them. But I was right, in January, to…
2017 will be one long vampire scream from the liberal elite
I’ve been looking at my predictions for 2016 made this time last year. It’s extraordinary — don’t check, just trust…
Weird and wonderful
As you’ve probably noticed, TV critics spend a lot of their time trying to identify which other programmes the one…
Morocco: A match made in heaven
I’m sitting by the pool in a lush Moroccan garden playing chess with Nigel Short, and I feel like an…
Populism vs post-democracy
Europeans are usually alarmed or sniffy about American concern for democracy’s fate, but this time liberal opinion on both sides…
Europe’s year of insurgency
After the tumult of 2016, Europe could do with a year of calm. It won’t get one. Elections are to…
Positively Trumpian
This being the time of year for it, you’re probably thinking what form your New Year New You will take.…
Switzerland: What makes Geneva tick
In a quiet backstreet in Geneva, a few blocks from the lakeside, there is a museum which will change the…
Looking homeward
Batavia, New York The presidential campaign just ended was mercifully lacking in the ghostwritten platitudes with which Franklin D. Roosevelt,…
The real Brexit risk
At the Westfield shopping centre in east London, the queues started at 2 a.m. on Christmas night. In Wrexham, people started…
A different class of snob
‘Ah, beware of snobbery,’ said Cary Grant, who was surprisingly often the smartest guy in the room. ‘It is the unwelcome recognition…
Italy: I’ve got Rome on repeat
My year was topped and tailed with trips to Rome. In March, as the blossom unfurled along the Tiber and…
