Donald McDonald 
Conqueror on College Street
It turns out that the least remarkable thing about Alexander the Great was his sexuality. Having been admired to the point of veneration for more than 2,000 years, Alexander’s star… Read more
Could the BBC fiasco happen here?
On 11 and 12 November, the ABC aired the docudrama Devil’s Dust about the James Hardie asbestos case. As drama it was very high-quality with uniformly excellent performances, direction and… Read more
Traveller’s Diary
Sailing up the River Neva towards St Petersburg (or Petrograd, or Leningrad) must have filled visitors with expectation and apprehension for more than 300 years. Created out of swamp land… Read more
What’s ailing Aunty
It has been said by its leadership that the times suit the ABC. That may be true, but it is relevant to ask whether the ABC suits the times. The… Read more
Foreign notes
The cruise was to begin at Piraeus, the port for Athens. We had arrived there two days earlier to deal with my Virgo anxieties that we might miss the departure… Read more
An emperor among galleries
It is extraordinary that objects, the like of which one hasn’t seen for 27 years, should seem so familiar. This is surely a testament to the impact the terracotta warriors… Read more
The chamber orchestra phenomenon
The surge of chamber orchestra popularity began to gather in the late 1960s. The first big wave reached our shores in 1972 when the Academy of St Martin in the… Read more
Stalin’s favourite play, and other challenges
Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton use a perplexing sentence in their introduction to the 2011 season of the Sydney Theatre Company: ‘As we enter the second decade of the 21st… Read more
Funny how time slips away
Opera Australia has a long history with Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss’s meditation on the passage of the years He called it a ‘comedy for music in three acts’. Richard Strauss’s Der… Read more
Mimi in Underwear, or opera for all
Opera Australia’s 2011 season promises to be a treat Writing recently in the Australian, Rosemary Sorensen deplored the publicity shot Opera Australia is using to promote its 2011 production of… Read more
Latest blogs
- Andrew Feldman denies calling Tory activists ‘swivel-eyed loons’ Fraser Nelson
- The swivel-eyed loons in the Conservative party are revolting. And they are right to revolt. Alex Massie
- Top Tory calls party activists ‘mad swivel-eyed loons’ James Forsyth
- Spectator Play: what’s worth watching, listening to or going to this weekend Camilla Swift
- Hammond on manoeuvres? The other Tory MPs who fancy a crack at the leadership Isabel Hardman
- Some anti-fascists are very fascistic Douglas Murray
- What Gove should know about Singapore schools Clarissa Tan
