Get a job
‘I grew up… with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and he looked for work. And…
Consider this…
Tell a big lie often enough… ‘This government will cost schools in Scullin $201 million – $201 million ripped out…
Australian Notes
The redoubtable Andrew Bolt wants a referendum on same sex marriage. Edmund Burke gave the best and traditional answer to…
Big Easy notes
I’m hoping that at least a few readers will be happy to hear that I survived my first ever trip…
Catalan Diary
Before there was Nineteen Eighty- Four and Animal Farm, there was Homage to Catalonia written by George Orwell in 1938.…
Culture Buff
Bill Dobell is back in town. At least an aspect of his output, titled Painter in Paradise: William Dobell in…
A birthday worth celebrating
Thanks to the Magna Carta, we avoided the dismal fate of becoming another Argentina
Killing it
They were the political grotesques that political junkies can’t get enough of. Thank god they’re back.
Clash of the gay-marriage glory-hunters
From corporations to politicians, everyone’s looking to purify themselves via gay marriage
Message
A tiny fly is moving over the page of my dull book this sultry evening, and it is my conceit…
Oh dear
How many times these days I say those words, Muttering them quietly under my breath Or petulantly as the telephone…
Oh dear
How many times these days I say those words, Muttering them quietly under my breath Or petulantly as the telephone…
Triple tie
This week I conclude my coverage of the Fidé (World Chess Federation) Grand Prix which finished last month in Khanty-Mansiysk.…
No. 366
Black to play. This is from Rodriguez-Xiong, California 2012. How does Black finish off? Answers to me at The Spectator…
Pylon poetry
In Competition No. 2901 you were invited to write a poem in praise of a modern-day blot on the landscape.…
Your problems solved
Q. My parents brought me up to write only my name in a visitors’ book. However, following a recent long…
Grills just want to have fun
The Beaumont Hotel is a bright white cake in the silent part of Mayfair, where the only sound is Patek…
A lot to ask
David Cameron is now facing the biggest challenge of his leadership: how to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU without…
High life
There’s nothing to add to Martin Vander Weyer’s item about Hellas of two weeks ago in these here pages except…
Long life
It’s June, and the country-house summer opera festivals are now in full swing. Glyndebourne, which opened the season last month,…
Long life
It’s June, and the country-house summer opera festivals are now in full swing. Glyndebourne, which opened the season last month,…
Low life
On Sunday morning, I was kicking a football in the back garden with my grandson. I had bought him his…
