Today, a muse is defined as a person or other influence in an artist’s life that gives rise to inspiration. The symbolic has been replaced with the scientific. In other words, a muse visits just as two neuron synapses clap together like flint on steel causing sparks

Stepping down as the founding CEO of the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, Professor Simon Haines shared these welcoming thoughts with the last draft of incoming scholars. 'It’ll be up to you,' he told them, 'to show your generation how to move beyond a trivialising, conformist, divisive and often extremist mindset'

"A rare letter comes from her mother. She’s still angry with Ronnie for leaving the island, for leaving a husband who provided for her. He’s pining for you, she writes. He says he won’t do it again. But Ronnie knows he will do it again, not because he can’t handle his drink, but because he takes after his father who was a wife-basher too"

Nobody who identifies as a survivalist or prepper is ever likely to be invited to an Australian writers’ festival or any other gathering of the ideologically pure. Unless, of course, they’re the sort of cashed-up, grant-fuelled preppers who anticipate the destruction of our planet by climate change

'I can hardly believe these MSO programme notes could be so ill-informed and so keen to whitewash an era of hideous tyranny and murder in the now-unlamented Soviet Union,' I complained some years ago. To my surprise, my gripe was taken to heart. I seriously doubt that would be the reaction today

Advocates believe it works not because of its firm evidentiary basis -- it is on very shaky ground empirically -- but because it has garnered so many citations from progressive academics. As the miseducation of Australia's children not only continues but gathers pace, the solution is a return to teacher-directed instruction

Ron Boswell, my former parliamentary colleague, has produced a superb instruction manual for anyone wanting to make a mark on our public life. His prescription is simple enough: have strong principles, be a good listener; be largely indifferent to recognition or reward, and work assiduously for the people you’re pledged to represent

Xi and his coterie are going about the business of stealthily disintegrating the one power, America, standing in the way of the Middle Kingdom assuming its place as the dominant world power. For that to occur America must be broken and defeated, preferably 'without fighting', just as Sun Tzu recommended

Sight-reading is frequently viewed as a special talent which is divinely gifted to a select few. Dohnányi’s first emphasis is that this is not the case and that sight-reading is “a matter of mere practice and can be acquired by anyone who has musical sense”. Interestingly, he points out that better sight-readers are regularly to be found among amateur musicians who, in their desire for variety, play through many pieces for their own private enjoyment, as opposed to diligently spending hours polishing a program of fewer pieces in preparation for the concert hall. This can mean that an amateur, albeit less refined in their own playing, can have a broader knowledge of repertoire.

In his own lifetime, Shakespeare had been considered just one of a bevy of capable and successful wordsmiths. How was it then that, in the eighteenth century, the flow of tourist traffic to Stratford reached such annoying volumes that a fed-up local vicar felled 'the Shakespeare tree' in a bid to get some peace and quiet?

Modern activists might be more kindly disposed to Captain Cook if he had honoured Aboriginal customs and eaten the children abandoned by their parents at Botany Bay, rather than gifting them cloth and trinkets. To do so would have been a form of communion, of commonality, between the English navigator and the locals

"Every time we have offered a clear right-wing Conservative philosophy we have won handsomely. When we’ve not done that, we have failed. This reflects the fact that there are large numbers of British people who still want to see traditional Conservative policies, who still believe in the traditional virtues of conservatism, economic and social cohesion"

One of the guises in which wolves come is as the righteous and empowered foes of 'hate speech'. Everyone knows that to be hated is discomfiting -- and to be discomfited is like saying goodbye, it is to die a little. Hence it must be suppressed, for the sake of the welfare of the sheep

The recent Law Reform Commission report and the federal Labor government’s draft religious discrimination bill constitute the latest attempt to bring the woke wave crashing down on religious education in Australia. The goal isn't to make Christian schools illegal, it's to regulate Christianity out of our schools

The ideological view blames individualism for society’s perceived problems, accusing modern life of promoting selfishness and neglecting the common good. Kenneth Minogue’s conservative individualism emphasises the uniqueness of Western civilisation and its balanced relationship with authority as the source of vitality, diversity and prosperity

China’s second attempt to build a socialist society, under the dictatorship of President Xi Jinping, is soon to join the list of spectacular failures. It seems the poor Chinese people must once again endure upheaval and suffering just as their parents and grandparents did under the Great Helmsman Mao Zedong.

It is more than a little alarming that, sooner or later, the preservation of Western civilisa­tion will be in the care of a damaged generation. As examined by Jonathan Haidt and Abigail Shrier in two new and disquieting books, there is much in that thought to keep one awake at night

Treble clefs have no interest in racism or sexism. But today, even The Rite of Spring, were it submitted for a grant or commission awarded by panelists kept deliberately nameless, could face rejection for appropriating the culture of ancient Russian pagans. It would amount to nothing more than grist for grievance-studies academics

It came as no surprise after Brexit and the election of Donald Trump that, rather than analyse movements rejecting the policies and edicts of an unaccountable, ruling elite in government, business, academia and the media, the Left embraced paranoia, denigration, conspiracy theory and demands for censorship

'It’s 80 or 90 years since Western countries have faced such internal and external challenges: with the rich getting richer and the poor getting less poor, but the middle class increasingly squeezed; with economies floundering under high taxes for ever more generous welfare systems and the red tape needed to achieve ESG goals'

Progressives denounce populism as a 'threat' to democracy, observes editor Rebecca Weisser in our just-released May edition. As former Prime Minister Tony Abbott also writes in this edition, 'If it’s the elected populists that worry you, isn’t that mistrusting democracy itself?'

Advice to a young life model First, have a body […]

The Fish That Dreamed Of Dancing Unlike his grown siblings […]

Ursus Horribilis (What’s in a name?) She called me “Bear”, […]

Boyd Vickery An old-fashioned storefront, with plain tables And unvarnished […]

pibroch on a windy night the wind that whispers like […]

Lazarus Tried to Comfort Edvard Munch, 1893 Lazarus tried to […]

Adoration’s Adorning Hozen Temple, Osaka 1 Set in a writhing […]

Autumn shuffle When I see old men shuffling out I […]

Noctivagous Samantha Wandering in the night, stark naked She did […]

October: Consecutive Days Walking. Separate but sewn together: two flaming […]

Morialta Conservation Park The faintest blue smudge on the far […]

The Traveller Growing disheartened with my life, I went to […]

The ancient Greeks believed in nine goddesses of inspiration known […]

  The fact that Stephen Edgar writes accentual syllabic verse, […]

Preface: Incredible as it may seem, it is now no […]

Madam: I was recently advised that the doctors’ accommodation on Mornington Island […]