Life
When is a Lord not a Lord?
The Financial Times seeks applicants for the Sir Samuel Brittan fellowship. Announcing this, the paper refers to him as Sir…
Am I having a heart attack?
Nairobi Some of our medical practitioners in Kenya advertise their services on street corners. ‘Bad omens, lost lovers, broken marriage,…
Dear Mary: how can I unmask anonymous marathon sponsors?
Q. My son-in-law is running the Paris marathon to raise money for cystic fibrosis research and has sent out a…
Under the Italian sun, the insects are stirring
The sun was setting on the first day of spring and I felt unusually happy as I fed the donkey.…
Aussie life
Memory is tricky. Wandering the Paris end of Collins street sipping espresso, waving to paroled Extinction Rebellion protesters, and thinking…
Language
We wordsmiths have a principle that ‘a text without a context is a pretext’. This matters because of what some…
Aussie life
Which part of ‘No thanks’, many Australians may be wondering, does our Prime Minister not understand? Six months after the…
Language
In last week’s edition of The Speccie our esteemed editor repeated a widely believed urban myth about the origin of…
