Christmas Diary
We’re home for the holidays. My wife insists: ‘We live in a resort!’ The neighbour’s roof is in front of…
Christmas diary
Shock! I’ve found a bomb in my library. My sanctuary. My hermitage. I’d hauled down a book of essays one…
Christmas diary
Christmas staff parties. Who goes with Christmassy joy, not apprehension or a need to ‘show your face’? I’m just back…
Christmas diary
My Christmas present to myself is a new life. I’ve always wondered what I will do when I grow up,…
Summer diary
Excuse me for starting on a flat note. On my mind this Christmas is that Australia’s most famous living Christian…
Christmas diary
I’m embarrassed. Last night I spoke briefly at a black-tie gala dinner of the Institute of Public Affairs. I must…
Christmas diary
My earliest memory of a Christmas holiday is of driving up to Darwin with Dad in his first car, a…
Roman Diary
I love Rome. I love how the old is woven into the new, so the ruins of some dead medieval…
Australian diary
Turnbull the blackbird has been obsessing me, stealing what’s not his. He’s hovering by a nest right outside my study…
Diary
I’ve been to Kirribilli House only twice. John Howard had little time for the Melbourne media, and I suspect did…
Better than those other bastards
Some Prime Ministers grow into the job - where others clearly did not
New Zealand Diary
Someone spilled duty-free liquor by the baggage carousel. I am flying and then bang: I land at Auckland airport. My…
Diary
The editor rings in a sweat. Tony Abbott was to have written this diary but dashed off to South Africa…
