We should politicize the Berlin Pride attack
Ghost Font, and the race to hide human communication from AI
Despite working with artificially intelligent databases in a former life, I retain a dim view of modern AI projects that…
The AusAlert conspiracy
News of the AusAlert conspiracy resulted in a head-tilt from me. To be honest, I was not aware it was…
Mainstream media deserves its fate on the scrap heap of history
Well, that was an interesting week in politics. I’m disgusted but not surprised by the media storm that deleted all…
Pauline Hanson offers Angus Taylor support to stop ISIS fighters returning
According to Credlin on Sky News Australia, Pauline Hanson has written to Angus Taylor offering One Nation support for any legislation…
The fighter
On Monday, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan was wooing Victorians as a warrior declaring she is ‘a fighter’, who would see…
Why AI could add decades to your lifespan, fix your wrinkles, and regrow your hair
There’s no denying Artificial Intelligence is suffering from a bit of an image problem right now, so it’s nice to…
Malcolm Roberts sets record straight on media conspiracy meltdown
According to some MSM journalists with a handful of viewers, ‘no one knows who I am’. After a week of…
The IRGC threat ends when the Islamic Republic does
In my previous article, I argued that engaging with Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi was not simply an act of support…
Amordad, the month of immortality
In ancient Iranian culture, Amordad is not merely the name of a month. It is a symbol of immortality, renewal,…
A writer goes missing
Part 1 – The Paradox One Tuesday morning in winter – it was July – I went with my mother…
End of the line for the ‘A/A’ leftist agenda in Victoria.
The virtually unknown Victorian Deputy Premier, Ben Carroll, has been elected the State’s 50th Premier after the dumping of Jacinta…
The inequalities that really matter
Andy Burnham has entered Downing Street having spent nine years arguing that the purpose of devolution was never simply to…
From ‘narcissist’ to ‘shrekking’
The words we invent for dating tell us more about modern relationships than any survey ever could. In 2020, TikTok…
The tyranny of the Census
You’ll receive your instructions soon… Sorry? When did I join the army? The Australian Bureau of Statistics is gearing up…
Robert Menzies: appeaser?
Earlier this month, Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy stirred controversy during a speech at the National Press Club. In pitching…
Crimson Conservatism
For as long as I can remember, I have been at odds with myself. I am disabled, yet I do…
The legal right to disobey unjust law
In an age of social chaos and moral confusion, as in times of tyrannical government, there will be a desperate…
Remembering Ithaca
The temptation to review The Odyssey is strong. Stronger still is the temptation to wail about the casting, the incorporation…
What 20 One Nation converts told me
Based on all available polling, it seems that if an election were held today, somewhere close to a quarter of…
Preserving the Institutions of Western Civilisation in the Age of Populism
The following is a speech delivered by the Shadow Minister of Defence, Liberal Senator James Paterson, at the Ramsay Centre.…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Albo’s corrupt media
As readers may remember, I’m just back from a visit to Canada. One thing an Australian notices immediately is that…
Hot little wars
During the first Cold War, an estimated fifty ‘hot little wars’ flared across the globe – proxy conflicts, insurgencies and…
Tyranny of the reluctant voter
There is a peculiar Australian conceit that compulsory voting is part of the natural order, as fixed as the Constitution…
1943 revisited?
The Newspoll released last week by the Australian shows a continuation of a trend, visible since January this year, which…
Israel is real
Like Abraham, I set out from Ur of the Chaldees to the hill country of Canaan, a journey of about…
The Anti-Australia Axis
With the media still obsessed with Barnaby Joyce’s stern and immediately obeyed command to his farm dog, journalists ignored the…
Lemon
It was once the engine room of the European economy, the strongest of them all. Germany is now on its…
Denigrating women the progressive way
This week, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson lost her case to overturn a ruling that she had breached the Racial…
Patrick Bruel and the death of French seduction
Patrick Bruel was once a heartthrob pop star whose dark brooding looks fuelled a ‘Bruelmania’ fever that swept through France…
What the Saltburn cricket scandal says about the fallibility of man
You know you are in trouble when Piers Morgan describes your behaviour as ‘outrageous’. Earlier this week a cricket fan,…
We must learn from Suzy Lamplugh’s death
Forty years ago today Suzy Lamplugh, a 25-year-old estate agent, left her office in Fulham. Colleagues believed she was meeting…
What is the point of Scottish Labour?
The Scottish Labour party is a bit like cigarette-smoking or the Church of Scotland: it used to be everywhere you…
Spain’s response to wildfires has been infuriating
From my home in Ávila I usually have a splendid view of the ancient town’s medieval walls. But yesterday morning…
Macron and his diplomats can’t help talking down Americans
Diplomatic relations between France and the USA are more strained than ever following a row at the United Nations. The…
What can Europe expect from America’s ‘Nato 3.0’ review?
The moment many European leaders had been awaiting with nervous anticipation arrived yesterday evening when the American Under-Secretary of War,…
Reform shouldn’t have reported Polanski to the police
Picture the scene. Nigel Farage unwittingly shares an Instagram snap featuring a grinning man wearing a T-shirt with a noose…
Watch: French warship fires warning shots near Chris Philp in Channel
On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings … as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a…
Trump’s Bibi break-up
On Monday, an unusually camera-shy Benjamin Netanyahu hopped on a flight to Washington. It wasn’t totally clear he would. Officially,…
The sale of Harvey Nichols is proof of London’s decline
Harvey Nichols used to be one of the most glamorous department stores in the world. But now the business has…
Has China cloned your congressman?
Speaking at The Hill’s Nation Summit last week, Florida Republican Kat Cammack claimed that the Chinese government was deploying “digital…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is a triumph
A gurgle of merriment
Chekhov is tricky. He’s not someone we think of as uproarious but the playwright himself used sometimes to complain that…
High Antipodean
The death of that fabled cricketer Sir Garfield Sobers – one of the greatest all-rounders who ever lived – is…
A Treasury on YouTube
It’s strange how much we take for granted the world we inherit, which is available to us on YouTube for…
To be trans Hamlet or not to be
Is there something strange about seeing a great comedian who identifies as a trans woman do a solo Hamlet, the…
Unlucky break: All In, by Claire Powell, reviewed
Claire Powell’s first novel, At the Table (2022), delineated a year in the life of the Maguire family from south…
New York crime caper: Cool Machine, by Colson Whitehead, reviewed
Cool Machine, the final novel in Colson Whitehead’s Harlem trilogy (following Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto), is another tour de…
Why spiders deserve our respect, not fear or disgust
I had not thought much about spiders until I read Maria Tatar’s Arachnomania; now I can think of little else.…
Adolescent anxieties: Schoolgirl, by Osamu Dazai, reviewed
In June 1948, the writer Osamu Dazai and his last love, Tomie Yamazaki, drowned themselves in the Tamagawa Aqueduct near…
When Mum went marching with the EDL
Nicola Wilding is a documentary film producer, whose family was originally rural working class. Aged 60, her mother, Sandra, prompted…
Why Cicero’s life and times have never seemed more relevant
How should we think about Cicero? He was the orator who claimed that he did his best to save the…
Will any lone fanatic soon be capable of bioterrorism?
In the summer of 2020, while the country was between ‘waves’ of Covid, Dominic Cummings convened a meeting at my…
An alternative Paris: Château Rouge, by Amit Chaudhuri, reviewed
Nearly ten years ago, the author, critic and classical Indian musician Amit Chaudhuri took up a visiting fellowship in Paris.…