Newsletter
Newsletter 407
Monday, September 20th, 2021 Newsletter,Having looked at portraits as kitsch flattery last week, this time I’m turning it around with a piece on ugly portraits. I suppose it’s an obvious ploy but during these locked-down days one has to take whatever can be gleaned from the home library and the Web. The frustrating thing is that every topic is […]
Newsletter 406
Monday, September 13th, 2021 Newsletter,It only takes a quick online search to find numerous examples of texts being banned from the syllabus of American schools and colleges. What’s especially bizarre is that books that have been historically important in changing racial attitudes in the United States, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill […]
Newsletter 405
Monday, September 6th, 2021 Newsletter,Thanks to Natalia Bradshaw for sending me the perfect word to describe life under lockdown: ‘Acedia’. According to Wikipedia the ancient Greeks used this term for “a state of listlessness or torpor, of not caring or not being concerned with one’s position or condition in the world.” The Christian Church made it into a sin […]
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 […]