-
Jan 17, 2025 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
Tennis Nick Kyrgios has spent the best part of a decade being contemptuous of both tennis and the media. Now, as his game slides further, he is embracing the latter. By Martin McKenzie-Murray. SHARE Copy Link Bluesky Facebook X LinkedIn The last time I wrote about Nick Kyrgios was during Wimbledon 2022. Enough time has since passed that we might see that moment as the high-water mark of his career and that his tide’s recession began very soon after.
-
Jan 16, 2025 | 
themonthly.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
April, 1945. The Soviets were close now, and all seemed lost. But the inevitability of Berlin’s fall did not prevent the Fuhrer’s final spasms of vindictiveness. As the shells fell, and the Russian troops advanced, Hitler was still arranging the execution of “traitors”.
One of those was the Lutheran pastor, theologian and Nazi resistor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
-
Jan 12, 2025 | 
themonthly.com.au | Daniel James |Martin McKenzie-Murray
Current Issue Newsletters Podcasts Login Subscribe 7am is a daily news podcast brought to you by Schwartz Media and The Saturday Paper. How to listen? Website The Saturday Paper’s associate editor, Martin Mackenzie-Murray, on the “shadow campaign” already underway – and what Labor insiders say is the biggest threat to the government winning a second term. The 2025 federal election campaign has already begun, even if unofficially.
-
Jan 10, 2025 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
It’s informal, the Labor insider says, and muted by holidays and the public’s summer disengagement, but the 2025 election campaign has begun. This week, the prime minister flew several thousand kilometres to visit two states and a territory in one day – compelling the opposition leader to mobilise his own “shadow campaign”.
-
Jan 10, 2025 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
A vehicle hit the bridge our train would soon cross, an apologetic announcement informed us, and thus our journey to the MCG would abruptly terminate. This obliged the sudden disgorgement of passengers, at least half of whom were Indian cricket fans, and the creation of a panicked bottleneck at the bus bay that was incapable of neatly accommodating all of us pilgrims. It was the final day of the Boxing Day Test, and Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant were still batting.
-
Jan 7, 2025 | 
spin.com | Martin McKenzie-Murray
Amidst our people here is comeThe madness of the dance. In every town there now are someWho fall upon a trance. It drives them ever night and day,They scarcely stop for breath,Till some have dropped along the wayAnd some are met by death. Straussburgh Chronicle of Kleinkawel, 1625On his last night alive, Australia’s doof-master goes hard. Spiro Boursinos knows no other way. Forty-five years old, few think he will ever change. There have been plenty of opportunities for humility, sobriety, contrition.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
In October, the CFMEU’s national secretary, Zach Smith, sent a message to union shop stewards fretting about declining membership rates and reminding them to enforce the “no ticket, no start” policy on sites. “Gentlemen,” the text reads, “we’re starting to lose traction at 28,870 Financial [members]. Could we make sure all membership compliance’s [sic] are handed in to Office by Tomorrow NO TICKET NO START”.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
For decades, professional wrestlers seemed to be dying in disproportionate numbers and in violent ways. Wrestlers were murdered, they drowned, they rolled their cars. They suffered overdoses, aneurysms and heart attacks. They died in the ring, after smashing their heads, or they killed themselves with guns or rope. The profession, once defined by steroids and unregulated painkillers, seemed morbidly blighted and its participants subject to terrible odds.
-
Nov 29, 2024 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
Conventional wisdom favoured Australia, and so did the bookies. But if comfort was found in this, then so too was complacency, and inside four days Australia were humiliated in a manner not seen at home since Hobart 2016. First there was the venue, Perth Stadium, where Australia were undefeated in Tests.
-
Nov 22, 2024 | 
thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Martin McKenzie-Murray
It was billed as the co-main event, but as the preceding fight to Tyson v Paul it was obviously considered subordinate to one of the most ridiculous but globally watched bouts in modern history. Let some modest justice be done here, though: in a day of weird and gaudy hype, the Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano fight was the best of the card, and perhaps of the year.
