Newsletter
Newsletter 404
Wednesday, September 1st, 2021 Newsletter,Life in lockdown: one day very much like the next, varied only by what one chooses to read, to watch or to write. Even the options for a quick, masked-up stroll set a 5 km limit to one’s perambulations. For me this means I can’t make it to the city or even to Centennial Park. […]
Newsletter 403
Thursday, August 26th, 2021 Newsletter,Only a Fox News presenter could look at the scenes unfolding in Afghanistan and not feel profoundly dismayed. Twenty years of sustained effort, tens of billions of dollars, thousands of lives lost, and we’re left with Taliban 1.01. It’s staggering to think the Americans could spend all that time in the country and entertain such […]
Newsletter 402
Monday, August 16th, 2021 Newsletter,Has anybody noticed a remarkable similarity in the way Scummo has handled the vaccination roll-out and the climate crisis? In both instances the strategy has been to protest loudly the seriousness of these issues, then to do the bare minimum. When it all blows up there’s another great protestation of how hard the government has […]
Newsletter 401
Monday, August 9th, 2021 Newsletter,Everyone is already suffering from cabin fever, so one wonders what it will be like when the Olympics are finished. I never intend to sit down and watch the Games for hours on end but they always get me in. There are probably thousands of people who have been similarly ambushed. The COVID-19 lockdown is […]
Newsletter 400
Monday, August 2nd, 2021 Newsletter,What is there to write about this week but the lockdown? And what has changed since my last rant on this subject? Only the duration of imprisonment. I’m not ready to join the idiots marching in the streets, punching police horses and demanding their “freedom” (freedom to infect other people with a deadly virus), but […]
Newsletter 399
Monday, July 19th, 2021 Newsletter,This has been one of those weeks I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I’m writing this delayed newsletter from the country, where I’ve had to return on grave and unhappy family matters. I won’t go into details but as you can imagine, travelling anywhere at present is an ordeal. Until now I’ve avoided any requirement for […]
Newsletter 398
Monday, July 12th, 2021 Newsletter,If asked to name a truly satisfying experience in a frustrating year, it’s hard to beat Julia Banks’s evisceration of Scummo on 7.30 this week. Like the corporate lawyer she is, Ms. Banks had prepared carefully for her interview with Laura Tingle. Where Christina Holgate confronted her accusers wearing white – symbolic of innocence and […]
Newsletter 397
Monday, July 5th, 2021 Newsletter,Hello, welcome to this Lockdown Special newsletter. With most specials you get more, but with this one you get a whole lot less. I’m not buried away in Sydney but still in the country on family matters. I know that as soon as I return home I’ll be sequestered away for at least a fortnight, […]
Newsletter 396
Monday, June 28th, 2021 Newsletter,This week I was forced to reflect on a great banal truth of human nature: we rarely have strong feelings about a subject that doesn’t impact directly on our own lives. This is one of the reasons it’s been so difficult to sell the message about climate change which remains an entirely abstract proposition to […]
Newsletter 395
Monday, June 21st, 2021 Newsletter,Never a week goes by without some reminder of the black hole into which the ABC has consigned the arts. I was pleased to see an article by Debi Enker on the Herald website that tracked back over the history of the ABC’s TV arts coverage and noted the weird obsession with sticking comedians into […]