Before the troubled illustrator produced his thousands of anthropomorphised felines, cats weren't generally regarded as respectable pets. His images of moggies smoking pipes, pushing wheelbarrows, parading on their hind legs and reading newspapers changed all that

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Ulysses for Bogans Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. —James Joyce, Ulysses I was a Lily of the Grampians, yeah? when I put the wattle in my hair like the Goolwa girls used or shall I wear a jumper, yeah? and […]

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There has been no shortage of movies about the life and career of the Iron Lady, but 'The Long Walk to Finchley' leads the field. A wonderful, visually gorgeous period piece charting a remarkable young woman's unshakeable faith in herself and her principles, the film is a much-needed counterweight to the many depictions of a loathed and unlamented ice queen

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Monkey-Skin Pillbox Hat It’s said that an infinite number of monkeys, typing for a month, or a year, would be able to discover all the works of William Shakespeare. I think that half that number, working from a trailer, could come up with the collected works of Norman Mailer, and a mere cageful, at the […]

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The artistic licence director Justin Kurzel and scriptwriter Shaun Grant brought to 'True History of the Kelly Gang', which presented Ned Kelly as a beardless buffed-up teen with a mullet, is no less at work in their account of the Port Arthur massacre. Be that as it may, Bruce Beresford regards the film as 'easily the best I’ve seen about one of those awful shootings'

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Short Poem Verbophobia: fear of words. Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia: fear of long words. Joe Dolce  

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'The Saboteurs' is a beautifully filmed period piece that focuses on one of the most crucial, but little known, missions of the Second World War, the destruction of the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant. To the Allies and resistance fighters who scuttled Hitler's bid for an atomic bomb, the physics were as mysterious as the danger and difficulty of the raid were obvious

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Cavafy Bath He has been indulgent too much wine too much reverie staggering down the hall in the dark toward the bath lit in candlelight salts and oil steaming the glass. The old poet removes his clothes, slips into hot water, uttering soft sounds as heat relaxes vexed muscles, sliding beneath candlelit water, ecstasy consumes […]

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The Mug with No Ear Oh come all you poets and painters alike, lay down your pencils and palettes tonight, fill up your glasses and raise up a beer, I’ll tell you the tale of The Mug with No Ear. Well, you’ve all seen his name on the museum wall, his work is admired by […]

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Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.  —Herman Melville, Billy Budd The science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury once said, “Shakespeare wrote […]

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