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2 months ago | 
themonthly.com.au | Jonathan Green |Paul Barry |Margaret Simons |Louise Milligan
The respected intellectual’s writing is a reminder of a moral rigour lost to public debate and universities, replaced by populism and culture-war politics I closed the last page of Robert Manne’s memoir with a sense of faint melancholy, and a nostalgia for a public conversation filled by a form of constructive conservatism that, these days, seems lost. His book describes a political discourse that was a thing of moral parameters, rigour, and an earnest search for truth and reason.
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Jun 29, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Anthony Ham |Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Jane Caro
Where does one begin a story of infamy? This one begins with the McArthur River, on the floodplains of the Northern Territory’s tropical savannah, just inland from the Gulf of Carpentaria. The river rises in the Barkly Tableland, passes through Borroloola, a small town 970 kilometres south-east of Darwin, then empties into the gulf.
According to local First Nations people, the story starts with the Rainbow Serpent passing over the land, giving the river form.
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Jun 29, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Meg Mundell |Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham
Microbats are the “gothic canary in a coalmine” for the health of our ecosystems, and their populations are in decline It’s lunchtime by the human clock. Ericka Tudhope reaches one gloved hand into the incubator and carefully lifts a small creature from the huddled mound inside. “This is Xavier,” she says. “He’s got a big attitude.”Xavier lifts his snout. He’s mouse sized, with soft fur and a plucky demeanour.
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Jun 29, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Jonathan Green |Margaret Simons |Anthony Ham |Robert Manne
At the end of May, senior executives descended on the Sydney offices of News Corp. Has change come to the unchanging media company, and what does the future look like? Rebekah Brooks’s eyes meet the camera cooly. Her bright auburn hair is smoothed straight on both sides of a loose just-off-centre part, before dropping into a tangle of looped curls that fall across her shoulders. The high forehead is regal. Elizabethan.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Susan Johnson |Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham
In letting others into our homes and our pets’ lives, international dog-sitting services are a two-way exercise of trust When I was a teenager there was a popular party trick favoured by teachers in high-school religious education classes that aimed to demonstrate trust in real time. Students were instructed to stand shoulder to shoulder in a tight circle and one unlucky soul was chosen to stand in the centre, close her eyes and fall backwards as if in a faint.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham |Jane Caro
The undermining of a highly credible think tank dedicated to bettering Australia’s understanding of China suggests a geopolitical naivety among our leaders and a lack of confidence in our role in the region They disagree, the people in the internecine Australian defence and security community, about the likelihood of war with China within the next five years. Almost all of them regard it as a real possibility, likely over Taiwan. It is a chilling consensus.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Brodie Lancaster |Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham
Director Kevin Macdonald puts the British fashion designer’s public disgrace for anti-Semitic attacks front and centre when considering his iconic status Before sitting down to watch High & Low: John Galliano (in cinemas), I had been curious to see how film director Kevin Macdonald would approach the subject of the fashion designer’s 2011 conviction for hate crimes, which came after more than two decades of artistic brilliance. I didn’t need to wait for the answer.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Patrick Witton |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham |Margaret Simons
The author’s speculation of Harry Houdini’s life in Melbourne in the early 1900s is impressively packed with period detail and fascinating characters Historical fiction can be a shaky thing. It leans close to the “based on a true story” hook, where an author takes an account and stretches a tale around it, hoping the seams won’t pop. But, of course, the “historical” aspect requires a certain rigour, lest an anachronism slip in and shatter the façade.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | Michael Williams |Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham
Basil, Sybil, Polly and Manuel are all present for this ‘Fawlty Towers’ dining experience – just don’t mention the wit The Oaks Melbourne on Market is, as far as hotels go, functional. Eighty-seven per cent of its Google reviews are positive about its location, down the Flinders Lane end of the city, up the block from the Immigration Museum. Responses to other metrics are more variable.
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Jun 28, 2024 | 
themonthly.com.au | David Neustein |Margaret Simons |Jonathan Green |Anthony Ham
Three design innovators are developing new materials and methods so that existing buildings could consume less energy As someone who designs buildings for a living, I feel equal parts pride and dread when I consider that buildings account for more than half of Australia’s electricity consumption and around 18 per cent of direct carbon emissions. Finally, I think, undeniable evidence that architects are important! Dreadfully, dreadfully important.
