Guest notes
Australian notes
Australia – the new Italy? There are lies, damned lies and statistics as often referenced. To this I would add…
Drunken notes
I’m a bit drunk, so let’s just get this over with: I love Malcolm Turnbull. Now, hold your tomatoes, proles.…
Blue blood notes
My sole dream in life is to be a champagne socialist. It irritates me no end that there’s no apparent…
Australian notes
Everything is tense as I get into the car. None of us can believe it. ‘What’s the latest?’ I ask.…
Aux bien pensants
It’s not so long ago that the commetariat was talking about the end of Qantas, at least as an international…
Fromelles notebook
It’s a small but devoted group, the Friends of the 15th Brigade. Each year it gathers at the Melbourne graveside…
Beltway Notes
Like Oscar Wilde’s demand that ‘the man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one’…
Diplomatic Notes
Paris this spring was still beautiful, but tense. Post-Charlie Hebdo, 8,000 smart, almost chic, soldiers supplement the edgy French police.…
Student notes
‘Manchester first, or Glasgow?’ I ask Steph. She shrugs. ‘As long as we get to the Doctor Who exhibition in…
London notes
I can see the London Eye from my hotel room, but for a panicky, hungover moment this morning I thought…
Hollywood notes
I have directed 13 feature films in the US and now, for the first time, have shot one in Los…
Deadly notes
‘The Aussies work out everythin’ backwards,’ says Wilson the Texan in Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, and there’s…
Christmas notes
Some Australians have forgotten how to speak their truth. Some have lost their ability to hear the truth. This is…
Voice notes
AFTER a year dabbling in radio, I listen to other people’s voices with a new ear. It is like suddenly…
Surrogacy Notes
Even the most ardent supporters of surrogacy admit that the present situation in Australia is a mess. Commercial surrogacy is…
Railway Notes
Home on the farm, or so it is meant to be this year but of late it has been everything…
Foreign notes
We have been in Italy since the beginning of May when I had what people politely term a ‘significant birthday’,…
