American beauty
‘At last,’ wrote Patrick Heron, a British painter, in 1956, ‘we can see for ourselves what it is to stand…
Kevin Jackson as Nijinsky
In 1981, at the Sydney Theatre Company, we presented a stylish production of Chinchilla, a play by Robert David MacDonald…
Hilarious, puzzling, boring
No Man’s Land isn’t quite as great as its classic status suggests. At first sight the script is a bit…
Australian letters
Slow boats Sir: I hope Rod Liddle seeks therapy vis-a-vis that terrifying penis that haunts him (‘Haunted by an honourable…
Bach to basics
The churning, rheumatic mechanism of a harpsichord — notes needling your ears like drops of acid rain — doesn’t necessarily…
Breaking up is hard to do
’Will you be dancing?’ the man in front asks his friend before the lights go down. ‘Most likely,’ she says.…
Losing heart
The subtitle for Mozart’s Così fan tutte may be ‘The School For Lovers’, but it’s as a school for directors…
There’s something about Mary
Music likes to tell the same story over and over again. This is part of its tradition but even individual…
Close encounters of the Eighties kind
Stranger Things is the most delightful, gripping, charming, nostalgic, compulsive, edge-of-seat entertainment I’ve had in ages. Like a lot of…
One day in November
The weather was ‘treacherous’ on Saturday, 23 November 2013, the day chosen randomly by Gary Younge as the focus for…
White Knight
Free State of Jones is an American Civil War drama ‘inspired’ by the life of Newton Knight, who led an…
Long life
Every threatened species of wildlife can count on the friendship of a member of the British royal family. There are…
The campus left and definitions of morality
The University of Melbourne Student Union is an oh-so-democratic body that left-aligned student groups vie to control so they can…
John Howard upsets Sydney’s sandstone soviet
Sydney University staff already skip off to Syria to help Bashar al-Assad with his propaganda ploys and get involved in…
Time to talk frankly on immigration
Last week The Australian editorialised on Australia’s immigration policies, noting that the Prime Minister’s “reception this week at an invitation-only UN summit on…
A time for optimism
The Brexit referendum has changed everything — at least politically. A new Prime Minister, a new Chancellor and a new…
Cash in the cellar
Achum of mine claims to have put two of his sons through private school solely on the back of his…
Letters
Ground zero Sir: James Forsyth looks for hope for moderates within the Labour party and finds none (‘The party’s over’,…
Plain vanilla – or too hot to handle?
‘Are they vanilla?’ is the first question you should ask about ETFs, or exchange-traded funds: so says veteran multi-family office…
Don’t run out of runway to retirement
Retirement may seem a long way off, but by the time you are 50 you could have only 180…
Brexit’s philosopher king
‘There was never a consensus among economists that Britain should stay in the European Union,’ insists Professor Patrick Minford. ‘That…
Cover 1 October 2016
The post Cover 1 October 2016 appeared first on The Spectator. Got something to add? Join the discussion and comment…
Simple rules for happy retirement
‘Financial policy chiefs clash over best way to fund retirement’, said a recent FT headline. Andrew Bailey, head of the…
Perils of the Pacific
In the great Iberian empires of the 16th and 17th centuries, a career was already avail-able in global administration not…
Sorry, but a degree is a rotten investment
Almost half a million students start-university this month. It’s an exciting time: the launch of adult life and independence. But…
