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Bourgeois writers are pulling out of the Bendigo Writers Festival in protest over restrictions on their freedom of speech over the war in Gaza. Event participants were given a code of conduct that said they must “avoid language or topics that could be considered inflammatory, divisive, or disrespectful”. I would have added ‘boring’. In what…

Hard not to agree with Jacqueline Maley the PC man-hater, although I can think of 20 Australian male novelists off the top of my head. Even so, by and large, the feminisation of lit is complete. Like the final stage of entropy. As for the Charmaine Clift nostalgia exercise, most of her novels were so-so…

There is something delicious here which would make a fab short story. The Minister for Homelessness evicts her tenants then jacked up the rent. A classic example of evil in the late capitalism period. “Britain’s minister for homelessness has been forced to resign over reports she evicted tenants from a property she owned and then…

This was written by Jo Bartosch and appeared in Spiked in the UK recently. Surely there’s a cavalcade of right-on woke, PC red guards who can excrete a novel on the rights of men to have babies. Monty Python in The Life of Brian entertained such as in idea. See link below: “Australian trans activist…

Adelaide’s media wants to blame Beijing, Canberra, sex offenders, hoon drivers, the poor, the GST, etc, for the devastating algae blooms across 100s of kilometres of South Australian coast line. Adelaide is the Flint, Michigan of Australia – but we’ll all go together when we go. We’ve ‘seen’ this before in the lead up to…

This story was in The Guardian (Australia) recently, written by Martin Ingle. Some years ago I made the same observation for a newspaper in Adelaide. There’s no forward drive, no optimism in film and writing. Same old depressing, naval-gazing stuff. “There has been much talk about our hunger for a “return to optimism”. Our world…

How Green was my trans-gender valley? Not very. These days I rarely comment on political issues but at the last Federal election, the Green’s leader Adam Bandt was turfed out of his Melbourne seat which was won by Labor’s Sarah Witty with a swing of more than 8 per cent. Even so, the Albanese government…

This is from By Charlotte Wilkes at the ABC Some fairly dodgy stats here trying to measure qualitative effects. Social media has destroyed reading for many and I’m not sure how popular non-fiction is for blokes these days. But one key reason is the feminisation of literature. Women write stories women want to read but…

I rarely read Jenna Price in the SMH, as she’s the epitome of a soft left, over-educated, inner suburban wanker. But this story hit the nail on the head. I taught at RMIT for 14 years and saw courses put online and die, people leave in droves and some of the worst teaching possible. There…

Anson Cameron is one of my favourite writers. Fantastic turn of phrase, witty and a down-to-earth vocabulary that even pashmina wearing trendies who read The Age can understand. Anson writes a regular column in The Age. Thank God. By Anson Cameron Gloom begets gloom. Darkness is the perfect environment for anxiety. As I’m taking nightly…