Keywords: Matthew And Son
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 19 August 2021
10 Comments
My son’s Athenian flat was burgled last month. I had been visiting Athens for the first time in more than a year, and so was with the family when they arrived back, after a fairly brief evening absence, to sheer chaos. Anybody who has had this experience will be able to picture the scene: every drawer and cupboard had been opened, with the contents spilled and strewn everywhere. Even the loft had been checked.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 26 July 2021
19 Comments
I was at university when I first heard of the so-called death of the novel, and was frightened by the thought. But I’ve since heard the phrase many times during the ensuing decades, and am cheered by the fact that so far the novel has clung to life, albeit precariously, while novelists persist in writing, despite the many drawbacks attendant upon the practice.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 06 October 2020
10 Comments
He came in, sat down, and we talked about Henry Lawson. He was well read in the field, having encountered Lawson not only in a small way at school but especially at home where his mother had given him an anthology of Australian stories and he’d come across ‘The Drover’s Wife’. We hit it off: he was pleasant, engaging and witty and we resolved to continue our talk in the near future.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
Topple them roll them into the depths of the sea to join their coffin ship. Make space in the air fit to breathe. We are come home to roost. We are home already, never left, just slipped your mind.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 02 July 2020
3 Comments
Daddy Cool is a thoroughly absorbing biography, witty, astonishing, often intensely moving, effortlessly in charge of a crowded and potentially confusing canvas (readers of a certain age will recognise names like Jack Davey, Roy Rene, Dick Bentley, Willie Fennell).
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AUSTRALIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 20 February 2020
3 Comments
The Australian Federal Police raid on the 5th of June last year shook the Fourth Estate and, according to managing director David Anderson, ‘was seen for exactly what it was: an attempt to intimidate journalists for doing their jobs.’ It saw an unprecedented closing of ranks between journalists across the political spectrum, pursuing a campaign that came to be known as The Right to Know. Convincing the courts about this principle would prove to be something else.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Brian Matthews
- 01 November 2019
3 Comments
The scene I have described was more than purely peaceful. In these iron days, to write about or seriously discuss the world of nature and its phases and complexions can be a political act, 74 years after Orwell wondered about that very same point in 'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad'.
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AUSTRALIA
- Nicola Heath
- 10 October 2019
7 Comments
For a nation with such a significant convict history, Australians take a peculiarly puritanical approach to prisoner welfare. Punishment, not rehabilitation, is often viewed as the point of the justice system. We take a very dim view of anything that could be construed as a prisoner perk. One such perceived privilege is access to the internet.
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MEDIA
- Eliza Berlage
- 22 May 2019
5 Comments
Morrison heralded his win as a 'miracle' and the media ran with it, leading to headlines like 'Messiah from the shire'. But while it was unexpected to those reporting on it, a look at deeply divided and change-averse Australia makes the Coalition win seem less remarkable.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 22 May 2019
1 Comment
For modern readers of Huizinga's The Autumn of the Middle Ages, there is a curious kind of double vision. While 21st century life has incomparably eclipsed medieval counterparts, there are aspects of the comparison that remain at least intriguing and, in some cases, enlightening.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
I moved to the Land of Magic, found it full of mumbo-jumbo. I bounced to the Kingdom of Rhythm, too many ups and downs. I went eagerly to Warm-and-Fuzzy, soon bogged down in treacle. I trekked to the Republic of Religion, it was open only on Sundays.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 27 March 2019
6 Comments
Like Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi in his works, Behrouz Boochani's No Friend but the Mountains exemplifies among many other things 'the possibilities of human decency' despite the Manus prison's squalor. Like George Orwell in another time and place, he is buoyed by hope in irrepressible nature.
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