Lullaby for a Battered Child Toys in darkness far away, shining in a box in my mind, just beyond my reach. Mama’s sleeping, Daddy’s not here, they can’t hear us, in our secret hiding, just you and me.   Punished children soon grow up, mixed up feelings, emotions, they don’t want to know.   Someone […]

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[An] assassin, dressed as a mailman, murdered a former Iranian diplomat inside [the District of Columbia] Beltway, in 1980, a tactic that intelligence and police officials insist came from Condor …   —James Grady In 2010, an Andean Condor named Thaao (pronounced tay-oh) died at the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was eighty years […]

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Gore, vengeance, pillage and politics, all packaged by Netflix in a multi-season series depicting Alfred the Great's campaign to create what we now call England. How accurate, historically, is 'The Last Kingdom'? Accurate enough to make it more valuable than a mere entertainment

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Bush Chinwag Why do we assume birdsong profound? Why don’t we grant birds the intelligence to motor-mouth on, and be as superficial as us?   Those two Rosellas, chirping back and fro, could be discussing the bright blue feather, of Esmerelda, a Fairywren, just flown in, for a visit, escaping weather,   sporting the latest […]

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There is indeed life after politics, as Margaret Thatcher's transport minister demonstrates with his series Great British Railway Journeys. As even a Guardian writer concedes, Portillo is 'a weirdly compelling host' whose passion for trains and history cannot help but take viewers along for the ride

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The adaptation of 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' into a 1979 BBC series left le Carré with a good opinion of what long episodic versions of his work could be. 'The Night Manager', starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie, more than confirms the author's faith was not misplaced

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Distinguished Transported   Daniel Connor. Seven years for sheep stealing. One of largest landowners in central Perth.   Jørgen Jørgensen. Eccentric Danish adventurer, declared himself ruler of Iceland, later became a spy in Britain.   John Davies. Founded The Mercury newspaper.   William Henry Groom. Politician, member of inaugural Australian Parliament.   Laurence Hynes Halloran. […]

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Gruel   Oliver asked for more. Politely. (He still got belted.) Popular literature was culprit for mongrel association, to starvation and poverty, but gruel has papers. Maize mush was the primary food of Mayans and Aztecs; a staple of ancient Greeks and Roman plebeians. Gruel allowed women to stop breast-feeding after only two years, halving […]

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The in-depth, long-play serials of episodic television bring us back to those now practically obsolete, brick-like Victorian novels—the kind you could get lost in for weeks. True, there are minor quibbles about the series' rendering of history, but overall it is an enthralling delight

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C C A D A   Tambourine of the cicada. Ululation of the cicada. White noise of the cicada.   Emerging out of cricket jangle, a crescendo of chattering, surround-sound clattering, mating call, war cry, territorial stake, community sing, the sonic arc steeply decrescendos back into frog cry and kookaburra hoo-hah. Between arias, erratic vocalists […]

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