flat white

Language and the left

If you work in a university as I do then you’ll be well aware of how academic writing and academic…

19 Oct 2024

Jimbo’s circular economy

I was reading about the Productivity Commission’s most recently commissioned inquiry into the circular economy, ordered by Jimbo, our esteemed…

19 Oct 2024

It’s the cost of government, stupid

Australia is not facing a cost-of-living crisis but rather a ‘cost-of-government’ crisis. A crisis borne of an inefficient and bloated…

Britannia waives the rules

Once upon a time Britain’s rule stretched from Westminster, across the Indian sub-continent to  South East Asia, North America, Australia,…

19 Oct 2024

Antisemitism on the menu

‘This cute French restaurant will deliver you dinner on a bike,’ says the headline on a TimeOut review of Bistro…

19 Oct 2024

Four simple truths about Israel

After the unimaginable events of last year and the perverse pile-on of Israel, Jews have been faced with those who…

19 Oct 2024

Business/Robbery, etc

Australia would not be alone in being grateful, as recommended in the Weekend Australian by former top defence and home…

19 Oct 2024

More wins for Europe’s right

Nothing propels the advance of the Western anti-immigration right like a renewed display of Islamist fanaticism. And so it was…

19 Oct 2024

How much trouble is Rachel Reeves in?

The countdown to Labour’s first budget for 14 years continues. Unfortunately for Rachel Reeves, the mood music is not particularly…

17 Oct 2024

The slippery slope of assisted dying

Critics of the Assisted Dying Bill have been warning for a while that it would lead to a ‘slippery slope’.…

17 Oct 2024

Kamala creaks in hard-hitting Fox News interview

Vice President Kamala Harris sat down with Fox News’s Bret Baier for a half-hour interview in which Baier politely took…

17 Oct 2024

Science Secretary failed to declare Taylor Swift tickets on time

Dear oh dear. Science Secretary Peter Kyle has certainly had better days in office. Despite Kyle insisting in the Commons…

17 Oct 2024

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How New Zealand managed to sink a tenth of its naval fleet

New Zealand just lost one tenth of its naval defence fleet. The HMNZS Manawanui – the jewel in the nation’s small military…

7 Oct 2024

How does New Zealand solve a problem like China?

New Zealand’s most important trading partner is also the nation’s biggest security headache, according to a new risk-assessment report produced…

8 Sep 2024

Why are so many young people abandoning New Zealand?

Heading to the UK is a longstanding rite of cultural passage for many Kiwis. People like my youngest son, who…

24 Aug 2024

Kiwi life

New Zealand in crisis Given the destruction the previous Labour government inflicted on this country, and the damage caused by…

29 Jun 2024

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Aussie life

Everyone has a Dan Andrews statue opinion. After two years of Covid lockdowns, rings of steel, #IluvDan hashtags and daily…

19 Oct 2024

Language

Given the time of year we must once again be ready to pull sour faces and make rude noises when…

19 Oct 2024

Dear Mary: how can I find out the name of a mother at the school gates?

Q. We want to keep on good terms with a potential grandson-in-law but he does not have the right kit.…

19 Oct 2024

The hypnotic competitiveness of Sir Ben Ainslie

Sailing’s very own ubermensch Sir Ben Ainslie has every right to be considered the world’s most competitive bloke. Those who…

19 Oct 2024

The journalist’s journalist: the irrepressible Claud Cockburn

No one should be put off reading Patrick Cockburn’s remarkable biography of his father by its misleading subtitle. ‘Guerrilla journalism’…

19 Oct 2024

The court favourite who became the most hated man in England

The Duke of Buckingham, wrote Alexandre Dumas, lived ‘one of those fabulous existences which survive… to astonish posterity’. In the…

19 Oct 2024

A scorched Earth: Juice, by Tim Winton, reviewed

Late last year in Australia’s The Monthly, Tim Winton wrote an essay on the urgent need for writers to look…

19 Oct 2024

The rollercoaster ride of the world’s most reckless investor

For a few days in February 2000, Masayoshi Son was the richest person in the world. A risk-taker and showman,…

19 Oct 2024

The magic of carefully crafted words

Early one morning, Alan Garner goes to let the hens out. The hens live in a hutch in the garden…

19 Oct 2024

Whipping up a masterpiece: painters and their materials

If you are someone who revels in the deliciousness of oil paintings, who looks at them and wants to eat…

19 Oct 2024

Mounting suspicion: The Fate of Mary Rose, by Caroline Blackwood, reviewed

‘She was dead even before I became aware of her existence.’ The menacing opening line of this gripping novel is…

19 Oct 2024

And still the colonial memoirs keep coming…

Since the 1990s there has been a spate of post-colonial memoirs written by white Africans. The best was Rian Malan’s…

19 Oct 2024