Diary Australia
Australian diary
It is great to return Down Under after first coming here in 2019 to start trade talks. We closed the…
Australian diary
I was rather pleased to be pulled aside by Australian Border Force when I arrived in Brisbane as a guest…
Christmas Diary
We’re home for the holidays. My wife insists: ‘We live in a resort!’ The neighbour’s roof is in front of…
Moroccan diary
Most Australians know little about Morocco because it’s one of those places that rarely makes the news. Not much goes…
Mombasa diary
Kenya’s second-largest city, Mombasa, is the sprawling home of some 3.5 million people on the nation’s east coast. Situated on…
Christmas diary
Shock! I’ve found a bomb in my library. My sanctuary. My hermitage. I’d hauled down a book of essays one…
London diary
Confirmation that we had finally left Australia’s increasingly stultifying wokeness behind came when our Qantas jet touched down in Singapore.…
London diary
Two years away from London due to Covid. Our Bloomsbury flat has been empty all that time. Probably possible to…
A woke diary
The Covid lockdown has confined me to the house for long periods. My wife is downstairs working on a new…
Sydney diary
The Test matches between Australia and England in Australia have not been much of a test of the Australian side.…
Christmas diary
Christmas staff parties. Who goes with Christmassy joy, not apprehension or a need to ‘show your face’? I’m just back…
Quarantine diary
After 404 days in solitary as a guest of Her Majesty, I was loath to spend a fortnight in institutional…
Christmas diary
My Christmas present to myself is a new life. I’ve always wondered what I will do when I grow up,…
Quarantine diary
I am now halfway into my 14-day internment in the Howard Springs Quarantine Facility, located in the Top End, a…
Diary
Gulag survivor and author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn famously said that one of the biggest mistakes people make is assuming totalitarianism can’t…
NT diary
The murranji frog is a desert amphibian that can survive long stretches without water. It is an apt name for…
Easter diary
Chocolate eggs still. Tick. Roast dinner still. Tick. Church still. Tick. But as if in a strange, distorting dream. This…
Diary
What a difference a few months makes. At the close of last year, all the talk in the United Kingdom…
Des Moines diary
As is obvious from recent events, we live in times where it is not enough to disagree with someone and…
Summer diary
Excuse me for starting on a flat note. On my mind this Christmas is that Australia’s most famous living Christian…
Diary
The words on the roadside hoarding capture the spirit of Singapore. ‘Let’s make Singapore our garden,’ they proclaim. Kilometre after…
England diary
In two recent visits to England, the ostensibly Conservative government has allowed the Extinction Rebellion extremists to shut down central…
Pearl Harbor
The Punchbowl in Honolulu, Hawaii is a place of reverence in which 34,000 American battle-dead are interred. Battlefield remains are…
Diary
I flew into a tempest. Although still early autumn, wild, windy and wet weather ravaged the UK, causing traffic chaos…
Diary
Despite the old saying and the best efforts of Qantas, you can go home again, even if home is New…
