Perhaps it was inevitable that the great-grandson of Arthur Waugh, grandson of Evelyn, and son of Auberon would be a writer. Alexander, who died last week at 60, certainly inherited eloquence, intelligence, wit and, as an admiring obituarist has put it, 'a patrilineal inability to pass an applecart without giving it a shove’

Margaret Thatcher expected 'a lot of hard work' from the London-based Australian dentist when she was elevated to the House of Lords in 1981 as Baroness Gardner of Parkes. As her fellow Peers mark her passing there can be no doubt about her energy and industry, albeit at the sometime cost of the Iron Lady's displeasure

The pauses in Sandy's monologues were worthy of Beckett. Critics acclaimed  a ‘darkness reminiscent of Philip Larkin’,  ‘Ezra Pound with the lights out’ and a pervading ‘Checkovian melancholy’. Barry more prosaically described Sandy as the voice of a different and vanishing Melbourne 'talking in its sleep'

'I understand its construction has not been totally without problems,' Queen Elizabeth wryly noted on that day 50 years ago, when the edifice that would become both the pride and symbol of Sydney finally opened its doors. Clutching skirt and speech notes against a blustery wind, Her Majesty ventured the Opera House would be deemed a wonder of the world. In this, as with so many things, insight did not fail her

The Argus birth notice put it succinctly, 'MENZIES - On the 3rd August, at Lancewood, Glenferrie Road, Kew, to Mr and Mrs Robert Menzies, of Howard Street, Kew, a daughter'. If Robert and Pattie Menzies were regarded as one of Australia's great double acts, with daughter Heather they became a winning trifecta

Charles attended his mother’s coronation. 'Look, it’s Mummy', he exclaimed. He was only four so his memory of the day must be faint, although a witness claimed that, as his mother took the Sovereign’s Sword, advanced with it to the altar and offered it to God, he watched enraptured. Now, at last, it is his turn

The pauses in Sandy's monologues were worthy of Beckett. Critics acclaimed  a ‘darkness reminiscent of Philip Larkin’,  ‘Ezra Pound with the lights out’ and a pervading ‘Checkovian melancholy’. Barry more prosaically described Sandy as the voice of a different and vanishing Melbourne 'talking in its sleep'

Many will find the idea of King Charles III a difficult notion to accept at first, not for reasons of personal disdain but because Queen Elizabeth II reigned so long and has been part of so many lives. In Quadrant's February 2022 issue, Mark McGinness marked those 70 remarkable years with a tribute to an equally remarkable woman, an appreciation we today reprise

On Sunday, bells will ring from churches throughout her united […]