Club Troppo

Despite Geoff Honnor's elegant demolition of Germaine Greer's egregious Quarterly Essay titled " Whitefella Jump Up - The Shortest Way to Nationhood ", and even despite Greer's figurative self-immolation on Andrew Denton's program last Monday evening, I continue to feel compel...

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Scott Wickstein , ever-perceptive, concludes that Sydney and Australia are different places. The incontrovertible evidence that Scott produces to support his proposition is the extraordinary brawl that broke out yesterday between former Kings School alumnus, now professional R...

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I was just thinking about the last time I wore shoes. Since ceasing work in an office I find that the occasions where I have to wear 'proper' footwear are becoming less and less. Going to work these days involves donning a pair of bathers and an Austswim instructors shirt to p...

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Greg Sheridan - on the History Wars - in The Australian this morning: "One of the most irresponsible things in normal democratic politics is to inflate the language you use about your opponents, to import moral absolutes into the prosaic and wholesome debates a democratic peop...

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After persistent shaming by Mark Gallagher , I've finally gotten around to implementing some code he supplied that creates permalinks at the foot of all comment box contributions. People will now be able to create hyperlinks directly to specific comments published on Troppo Ar...

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This post is an experiment in audio-blogging (or oral blogging) using streaming audio. Click here to listen. You'll need to download and instal the latest version of Windows Media Player (free download) to be able to listen in "streaming" format (i.e. without waiting for the e...

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There I was sitting in front of 'Lateline" and Secretary of the Treasury, Ken Henry - who looks alarmingly like Malcolm Turnbull in a certain light - pops up on the screen. I'd clearly nodded off and had entered the realm of telepathic communication, because his message was ob...

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As today's Australian notes , bail applications and appeals against refusal of bail by One Nation founders Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge were yesterday refused by Queensland's Court of Appeal. What I hadn't realised (not being a criminal law specialist) until I did some qu...

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A 10 year old girl is mauled by a croc in a billabong at Patonga in Kakadu and where do I read about it? In The Australian breaking news ! What has become of the Northern Territory News ? Surely that publication's sole raison d'etre is to record the table d'hote proclivities o...

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You've got to hand it to Margo Kingston - our own roll-your-own, Oriana Fallaci-in-a Flannie. While lesser political commentators - "Quislings" as Webdiary , rather derivatively terms them - waste time on considered analysis, reasoned reflection and logical conclusion, Margo g...

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For those of us married to Kiwis, last night's smashing 48-22 NRL win by the NZ Warriors over the Canterbury Bulldogs raised seriously for the first time the depressing prospect that Kiwi teams might well take out both the Rugby World Cup and the NRL premiership. Sux months of...

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My brother and his wife are currently touring the old dart and I thought you may be interested in an extract from their recent newsletter. On the Isle of Skye we went to a Highland Games, great entertainment, the spectators sit on a grassy rise surrounding a flat arena where s...

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The Twin Towers rise again. If you don't believe it you don't know Darwin. Back in the 1980s our principal gay nighclub was named Dix, while its main hetero competitor was called Fannies. PS - Speaking of restraint and good taste (not to mention wit and intelligence), I see Ti...

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This story is worth reproducing in full: People who want to live longer and stay healthier were urged by an expert on ageing to have more sex and earn more money. Dr Ronald Klatz, president of the American Academy of Anti-Ageing Medicine Inc, said on Thursday that a British st...

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I'll let the man in black speak "I hear the train a comin'; it's rollin' 'round the bend, And I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when. I'm stuck at Folsom Prison and time keeps draggin' on. But that train keeps rollin' on down to San Antone. When I was just a baby, m...

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Germaine Greer's just-published Quarterly Essay, Whitefella Jump Up , adds yet more credence to my theory that Greer has metamorphosised into a Barry Humphries creation: the eccentric old bluestocking aunt who loves to blather on in a colourfully opinionated, slightly shocking...

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Michael Costello seems now to have joined the ranks of those (including this armadillo) betting on an early double dissolution federal election. From memory of a bet made months ago, I win a nice bottle of red from Michael Jennings if a DD election is held any time between Dec...

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From the transcript of last-night's Lateline -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TONY JONES: Except of course Al Qaeda, for example, would still have safe and quite prolific training camps and bases inside Afghanistan wh...

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CNNNN tonight had a hilarious episode in which the immutable backbencher Alan Cadman challenged for the Liberal leadership, which is an amusing enough as a stand-alone scenario. In a wonderful parody of the navel-gazing speculations of the press gallery, Cadman entered the pic...

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Now that the debate about what white Australia can do to improve the living conditions of Aboriginals is back on track I thought I'd add my two dollars worth. $2 because this is a subject that I actually know something about, having put my snout, along with almost every other...

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