Francis Wyndham 1924-2017 Above my writing desk at Tweed Heads on the New South Wales-Queensland border is a photograph of writer, editor and literary mentor Francis Wyndham who has died in London aged 93. The colour photo depicts Wyndham in front of a portrait of himself painted by the late Lucian Freud, another of Wyndham’s…
Exploring Australia-China history Canberra writer and journalist Rob Macklin has written a highly relevant, timely and utterly riveting book on the intricate relationship between Australia and China. Over the years, I’ve read most of Macklin’s 28 books but this is his best. It’s a cracker. With China established as Australia’s major trading partner, and the Beijing…
A stellar crowd of friends gathered at Lucio’s restaurant in Paddington, Sydney, on Saturday 12 August 2017, to welcome Kay Lanceley into the gracious company of octogenarians. She did it in typical style, with much laughter and general gaiety. As very young people might say, the celebration was “awesome”. Kay, widow of the acclaimed artist Colin Lanceley…
Brisbane audience welcomes book on Art Gallery of NSW … AGNSW director Dr Michael Brand spotted in Venice: next stop Brisbane … Theresa May’s big election gamble … Rupert Murdoch’s loses his news room gorillas … NSW Coroner report on Lindt Café siege: whitewash or what? … Art gallery turmoil making waves News travels fast. When…
Judith White’s newly-released book, Culture Heist: Art versus Money, has stirred the possum in Sydney’s art world and divided it into two opposing camps. On one side is the top heavy, out-of-touch management of the Art Gallery of NSW and on the other is a wide body of opinion among art lovers. The AGNSW bureaucrats…
Theresa May’s election gamble in Britain … Tories should win at a canter, BUT …. Some headlines starting to turn ugly …. Now NSW police has a special thought unit … Annual storm over ANZAC Day won’t die away … Culture Heist launch Judith White’s book, Culture Heist: Art versus Money, published by Brandl & Schlesinger,…
Sickness at the Art Gallery of NSW: an insider’s account … Family First? New Kenyan-born senator is a millionaire … Donald Trump is supporting the election of Mrs May and Ms Le Pen – why? … A night at the Packer Family Logies … Blackpool, city of depression … Great Crashing Bores Public art gallery…
Phillip Knightley, master craftsman of newspaper journalism, leaves a legacy of accuracy, independence and getting stuck into the rich and privileged … Mainstream media straining for rebirth of fascism … Why media got Austria so wrong …. Time to fight for the ABC Personal tribute to my captain Phillip George Knightley, newspaper journalist par excellence,…
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull faces political death from the scorpion stings of Tony Abbott … Greyhound racing falsifies support … Demand Buck Palace releases Gough Whitlam dossier … Nobel Prize winners march for Palestine … My draft list of future plebiscites … George Brandis at Festival of Dangerous Ideas … Great Crashing Bores cont….
False choices: the faux feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton ed Liza Featherstone, Verso, London & New York 2016 No one wants to see a fascistic, racist, misogynist blowhard in the White House – no one, that is, except some dangerous groups of right-wing fanatics, half the Republican Party and some millions of deluded, uneducated (not…
