Category Archive: LIFE
No Swiss Bliss
(Eurovision Song Contest, Basal, 2025) “in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” Thus Harry Lime to Holly Martins in The Third Man, and whilst Orson Welles, who apparently wrote the line, failed to mention the creation of toblerone, there is still a harsh truth about this beautiful, woke, sterile country. So it is a pity that it played…
Continue Reading →Barrie Robran
(1947-2025) In the Greatest Game of Football ever played, the 1973 Grand Final, where his North Adelaide side was going for three Premierships in a Row (after triumphs in 1971 and 1972, along with the 1972 Champions of Australia Trophy) Barrie Robran just-about won it off his own boot. You can Google his stats and many accomplishments ( https://sanfl.com.au/history/hall-of-fame/barrie-c-robran-mbe/ ): all we can add is that he was the best footballer that most of us have ever seen, and one of the nicest. He was invited by Glenelg Football Club to mark an anniversary of the 1973 GF (1998, from…
Continue Reading →The Windmills of His Mind
In the northern Summer of 2025, we learned that former President Joe Biden is writing a memoir of his Presidency. He also mentioned that a number of European leaders have kept in contact with him, seeking his advice and continuing participation in affairs of the World. We have commented (almost) enough on the Biden Imbroglio, and don’t want (too much) to kick a man when he’s on the ground, so instead let’s hum a little tune, with apologies to Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Noel Harrison: “Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a…
Continue Reading →Auschwitz Liberated
(27 January, 1945: the liberation of the Nazi’s most infamous extermination camp) Blood libels against the Jews are nearly as old as the hills. They were stirred during the First Crusade (1096), but reached the nadir (at least, one hopes) during the Second World War, in the form of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” “At camps maintaining labour installations, like Auschwitz, 10 per cent of the arrivals – those who looked fittest – were selected for work. The remainder were consigned to the gas chambers. They were instructed to undress; the women and girls had their hair cut. They were then marched…
Continue Reading →Social Justice Fallacies
(By Thomas Sowell, 2023) Described by economic historian Niall Ferguson as a tour de force, Social Justice Fallacies arrives, like Spiderman, just in time, the imminent end of Peak Woke (aka Peak Stupid). Wikipedia defines Social Justice thus (footnote omitted): “Social justice is justice in relation to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society where individuals’ rights are recognized and protected. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fulfill their societal roles and receive their due from society. In the current movements for social…
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