Castro a tyrant? Not according to the ABC
Unbelievable. Absolutely un-be-f*cking-lievable. Read the ABC’s obituary of Fidel Castro, the “romantic revolutionary”. Not one mention of human rights abuses.…
Protect our troops. Abolish the Office of Military Prosecutions
‘Stop firing’ screamed the Afghan interpreter metres away from a suspected Taliban leader as he emptied his magazine towards a…
What was that Paul Keating was saying about the ABC?
What was that Paul Keating was saying about the ABC only yesterday? Something about the broadcaster “letting Australia down” in…
Screen grab
St James’s Palace. 1953. A dynamic Duke of Edinburgh is relishing a ding-dong with the antediluvian fossils of the Coronation…
The Battle for Britain
The post The Battle for Britain appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment…
You’ve lost that loving feeling
A United Kingdom is based on the greatest love story you probably didn’t have a clue about. I know I…
Bridge
When I first started playing bridge, in the late Nineties, the Young Chelsea marathon was a continuous 24-hour tournament and…
no. 436
White to play. This is from Karjakin-Carlsen, World Championship, New York (Game 7) 2016. This position will be dead equal…
Changing fashions
In Competition No. 2975 you were invited to supply your own nine-line twist on Robert Herrick’s ‘Upon Julia’s clothes’: …
2288: Housey-housey
The unclued lights (ignore two apostrophes and an umlaut) are of a kind, as verified in Brewer. Across 1 …
to 2285: Characterful
The theme word was China, the Mandarin Chinese word for which is Zhongguo (the pinyin transliteration of 中国). Unclued lights…
The beast in man
Ernest Hemingway loved going to the zoo, but not on Sundays. The reason, he explained, was that, ‘I don’t like…
Dear Mary
Last week I went for an interview with the Irish Guards. My father and his father were both in this…
Meat and greet
Zelman Meats — catchphrase ‘great meat’ — is sustenance for a hard Brexit — a harder Brexit, if you will.…
Long life
Do you remember Liberace? Yes, of course you do. Who could forget him? The Wisconsin-born son of a poor Italian…
Simon Collins
Forget Thredbo, Charlotte Pass and Falls Creek; Australia’s best skiing conditions are to be found in Canberra! For reasons which…
Coulrophobia
There’s something suspicious about the name for a fear of clowns which was on the shortlist of words of the…
Real life
A few weeks after switching my iPhone to the EE network, I noticed a funny thing. It hadn’t rung. I…
Abandon dope, all ye who enter here
The World Anti-Doping Agency has just called on Russia to confront its wrongdoing and generally shape up. Well, good luck…
My ticket to a £150 rip-off
Last week, my 13-year-old daughter Sasha and her friend Tess were taken by her god-father, Sean, to see Catfish and…
The turf
Talking to Paul Nicholls earlier this season, I was shaken to hear the ultra-competitive champion trainer say that he wouldn’t…
Trump, Turnbull & Abbott
Let’s say you’ve recently been hired to earn a living as an opinion piece writer for a newspaper. Let’s really…
Laziness of the Human Rights brigade
During this year’s federal election campaign, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a piece by academic lawyer Ben Saul entitled ‘Human…
Drain Burley Griffin
The reason so many know-alls have had to scrape the lashings of egg from their faces is that once again,…
