A friend just recently commented that he thought my thoughts about militant Islamism had changed over recent times. That is no doubt true. But it also provided a spur to me to summarise what I currently think on this issue. This short essay seeks to do just that. It is difficult to understand the phenomenon […]

This is the week of Australia Day. First up on the day, while it was still cool (36 degrees being the forecast maximum), I did something very Australian and mowed the lawn. Then I sat down to read the newspaper. I couldn’t help peruse the Australia Day honours list to see who I knew had […]

The underlying platform of our liberal democracies is derived from our freedom of speech. There is nothing more important to an enlightened society. Yet, today, it seems to me that our freedom of speech is being constantly eroded. With that our way of life is being threatened. As you can see, I have titled this […]

With the ubiquitousness of social media, it’s now almost impossible to keep anything to yourself! The tentacles of Facebook and Twitter reach into every crevice of our psyche and overturn every metaphorical stone we seek to hide something under. Sometimes reputations are destroyed by anonymous commentators who operate with malignant intent and no accountability. Often […]

I have always enjoyed sport. When I was young I played cricket, rugby league and basketball with varying degrees of success but with considerable enjoyment. The teams I played in were not champion teams and we probably lost more often than we won. But that was character building as well. I also competed in athletics […]

So, another year has passed. There is nothing particularly special about that but I am heartily sick of people saying to me, “Where did the year go! It seemed to go so quickly.” In fact it went where every other year we have experienced went. (It is as though they expected to turn a rock […]

“If you open your mind too much, your brain may fall out!” Attributed to The Telegraph commenting on a video purporting to show an alien body being dissected. (Although I have also noticed someone recently attributing it to G K Chesterton!) It seems a harmlessly endearing quality of the human race that it seems capable […]

Every national church or religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals. The Jews have their Moses, the Christians their Jesus Christ, their apostles and saints, and the Turks their Mahomet, as if the way to God was not open to every man alike. Each of those churches […]

In the early 1960’s, as I remember, the American comedian, Stan Freberg, was quite popular and his recordings were regularly played on Australian radio stations. One such piece (which I think was taken from his radio show in the US) was a bit of a spoof of him attempting to sing the Jerome Kern standard […]

It is said that the eminent Russian writer, Fyodor Dostoevsky was famous for the psychological insights of his writing. In his Winter Notes on Summer Impressions he mounted the following challenge: Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that cursed thing come to mind […]