Australia
My wild place
What you can see from a tin house in the Australian rainforest
Reasons to be cheerful, parts one, two, three…
Well the sun is out, the sky is blue, and poor Boris Johnson is taking such a pounding from Matthew…
Two big hitters leave the crease
Two great men have just bowed out from their chosen trades and it is bloody sad. The New Zealand cricket…
Flying doctors
A few months ago, paramedics were on the brink of industrial action. They had legitimate grievances. Ambulance services were being…
Game show
A few years ago, a distinguished cove in the diplomatic service was made High Commissioner to Australia. To prepare himself…
Portrait of the week
Home After the killings in Paris, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said that seven terrorist attacks on Britain had been…
The Australian example
For many years, Australia has been turning away boats filled with migrants. From a remove, this looks cold–hearted — a…
Joubert’s the man to sort out Syria
Not since Walter Palmer, a cudddly Minnesota dentist, put down his drill and vanished off the face of the earth…
The Australian way
Turning back boats saves lives
Art by committee
Australia, 1788. A transport ship arrives in Port Jackson (later Sydney harbour) carrying hundreds of convicts and a detachment of…
Migrant
Al Jazeera, the Qatari broadcaster, is going to use refugee instead of migrant in its English output. ‘The umbrella term…
Best of enemies
Why nothing in sport beats thrashing the Aussies at cricket
Australia’s comeback kids
I have never met an Aussie I didn’t like, but, crikey, their sporting indefatigability is exhausting. Don’t they ever give…
A triumphant failure
I must be an idiot for pointing out the failings of a novel that’s so screamingly, self-denouncingly about failure. Steve…
Aussie rules
Some years ago I paid a visit to the site of the Gallipoli landings because I was mildly obsessed with…
Will jailing Katie Hopkins save the lives of migrants? I have my doubts
More than a thousand migrants have died attempting to get into Europe over the past week, including 900 who perished…
A father goes over the edge
When Helen Garner, an award-winning Australian author, first saw the TV news images of the car being dragged out of…
Cricket must return to Pakistan
In a tiny courtyard just off the teeming alleys of Lahore’s old town, a young Pakistani boy in a gleaming…
Diary
Do fish have loins? Last Tuesday, in a pretentious restaurant, I ordered a ‘loin of sea trout’. It looked just…
Voices of the world
‘Don’t take it for granted,’ she warned. ‘It’s one of the few places where you can hear diverse voices, different…
Daddy, we hardly knew you
The lefty hereditary peer has few equals as a figure of fun, in life or literature. The late Tony Benn…
Into the bush
The first Inbetweeners film made £45 million at the box office, and was such an unexpected smash there was always…
Oh, what a tangled web
There aren’t many places you can get shouty about Proust without losing your job. The Lane Bookshop in Perth, Western…
It has to stop?
Upspeak can damage your career prospects
Back to her native roots
Like an old woman in a fairy story, Germaine Greer, now in her late seventies, has taken to lurking in…
