Aussie Life

Aussie life

16 March 2024 9:00 am

Much has been written of Australian soccer captain Sam Kerr’s big night out in the back of a London cab.…

Language

16 March 2024 9:00 am

When we use Old Aussie we might call a bloke a ‘cove’ – but why? Why is an adult male…

Aussie life

9 March 2024 9:00 am

The Banksy retrospective which has been drawing modest crowds to the basement of Sydney Town Hall in recent weeks is…

Language

9 March 2024 9:00 am

Adam, a Speccie reader, asks about the familiar expression ‘face the music’ – meaning to face up to the consequences…

Aussie life

2 March 2024 9:00 am

In a provincial Victorian city a vast brooding monolith has recently obtruded itself into the ‘built environment’, usurping the church…

Language

2 March 2024 9:00 am

As if the sheer horrors of the Hamas attacks on Israel weren’t bad enough, now someone has coined the expression…

Aussie life

24 February 2024 9:00 am

Surprisingly, perhaps, it was only 20 years after the Union flag was first raised in Sydney Cove that white Australians…

Language

24 February 2024 9:00 am

Is the great old Aussie word ‘bloke’ an offensive word? The army thinks it is. Writing in the Daily Telegraph…

Aussie life

10 February 2024 9:00 am

At time of writing, we do not know whether there is any truth to the allegations which have been made…

Language

10 February 2024 9:00 am

The expression ‘culture wars’ is having a flush of popularity just now, but it is surprisingly old. Recorded in English…

Aussie life

3 February 2024 9:00 am

It’s no wonder the cost of living is rocketing when the politicians who run our country have little or no…

Language

3 February 2024 9:00 am

A headline worth sharing. When King Charles went into hospital to have repair work done on his prostate, Associated Press…

Aussie life

27 January 2024 9:00 am

Move over, Errol Flynn. It took long enough, but as of last Tuesday you are no longer Tasmania’s most popular…

Language

27 January 2024 9:00 am

A teacher in America has raised a minor storm in a teacup by banning from the classroom current hip and…

Kiwi life

20 January 2024 9:00 am

Ah, summer. The sap is rising, and so are anxiety levels on either side of the Tasman as editors cast…

Language

20 January 2024 9:00 am

They keep inventing new, so-called ‘phobias’, don’t they? The latest is ‘fatphobia’. A new book has been published called Unshrinking:…

Language

13 January 2024 9:00 am

Raymond, a Speccie reader, has coined a new (and possibly very useful) word: ‘twistory’. This neologism is another portmanteau word,…

Aussie life

6 January 2024 9:00 am

Australia is becoming a secular society. Religion of the boring old traditional type our grandparents followed is on the way…

Language

6 January 2024 9:00 am

A Speccie reader in Canberra (what has he done to deserve capital punishment?) asks the origin of the latest label…

Language

16 December 2023 9:00 am

They keep doing this to us. Those kids keep inventing new words of obscure origin, and of even obscurer meaning.…

Aussie life

16 December 2023 9:00 am

‘Oh sweetheart,’ I smiled lovingly at my four-week-old, Teddy, one night at 3am, while changing his nappy, ‘would you please…

Aussie life

9 December 2023 9:00 am

While the donning of keffiyehs by actors at the end of a performance of the Sydney Theatre Company’s production of…

Language

9 December 2023 9:00 am

When Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press he was asked if Israel was breaking international…

Aussie life

2 December 2023 9:00 am

Who can honestly say they’ve never contemplated murder? What red-blooded Australian can put their hand on their heart and swear…

Language

2 December 2023 9:00 am

We are unlikely to forget the look on Anthony Blinken’s face when the word ‘dictator’ slipped out of Joe Biden’s…