Everyone’s a robot

“Day (After Day) in the Life of the Useless” by Will O’Mahony is a firecracker comedy about life in a world dominated by AI.

Remembering Gloria Steinem

Feminist activist Gloria Steinem fought for female freedom and empowerment over a six-decade career as a journalist, activist and feminist icon.

Rediscovering Lesbia Harford

Lesbia Venner Harford was a woman who knew she’d die young but became a revolutionary all the same in both her private life and radical politics during and after the First World War.

Star Trek at 60

An endless slew of Star Trek schlock in recent years has tarnished its reputation, but the original series remains one of the most important TV series ever made, as the adventures of the Enterprise not only explored the galaxy but what it means to be human.

Reading Richard Flanagan

Richard Flanagan’s latest book “Heresies” is a collection of 24 occasional pieces published between 2009 and 2025 and display the deep thinking and reading of one of Australia’s leading writers.

It’s just a jump to the right

The exuberant Tim Curry has died aged 80, following years of health struggles brought on by a stroke. He’ll always be remembered in popular culture as the “sweet transvestite” Dr Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show he did much more in a career which spanned five decades.

Still dancing after all these years

Swedish pop sensation ABBA released their single Dancing Queen half a century ago and it’s still riding the airwaves, being belted out on the West End stage, squealed at karaoke parties, paraded at Mardi Gras, and danced to at wedding receptions around the world.

25 years after A.I.

Released in 2001, Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.” predated smart phones, let alone Large Language Models but the film feels newly relevant as it explored the emotional and ethical questions that emerge when people form relationships with machines.

Ten of the best

A novel doesn’t need to be a hefty tome to change your life. Forget War and Peace (1,200 pages) or Les Misérables (1,400 pages); these expert recommendations are under 150 pages – short enough to tear through over a weekend.

The disreputable birth of the novel

Ask someone today why they enjoy reading novels and they will likely say it allows them to escape real life and immerse themselves in a different world. This escapism is seen as positive today, but for centuries novel reading was thought to corrupt readers for precisely these reasons.

In search of Homer

Homer, the author of the Illiad and Odyssey, is lauded as one of the greatest poets in human history but he probably didn’t exist.

PM for Plutarch

The writings of Plutarch of Chaeronia were an important part of humanistic education in the West for many centuries, influencing everyone from Michel de Montaigne and Francis Bacon to William Shakespeare, and the practical nature of his essays keep them timely in our social media age