The Migently Mountain Manifesto   Australian values have lately been enthusiastically asserted by some Australians and Sir Roger has been much impressed – in much the same way a washed-up prize fighter feels the repeated impressions of his opponents’ fists in his guts.   These assertions of “Australian values” tend to be energetically debated in [...]

  So in the Cimitière Montmartre I found one of my heroes. Émile Zola   That is to say, I found the memorial. He is interred at the Panthéon. Why a hero? Amongst his many writings Emile Zola wrote this, which is as relevant today in our political discourse and climate as it was almost [...]

…and to yours, and to all of us.        Sir Roger is currently in the land of the poppy but not near Flanders fields. Yet there are poppies here in the South of France and the whiff of war and bloody conflict is inescapably faintly background to all. And so it was a cold and [...]

    He walked away. He walked back. He could not look at her. He could not look away. He began to say something. He could not say anything. What could he say? Whatever he said must appal Elenora, perhaps disgust her. Certainly discomfort and embarrass her. The last thing he wanted was to cause [...]

  In less than a heartbeat it was done. The Cupid’s, Bertrand’s, tiny arrow was buried deep in his heart. Cold as deep blue ice. Hot as white hot gold. From this moment there was no hope of Cupid’s cruelly-barbed steel ever being removed without tearing his heart out with it. And Hamgar looked up. [...]

  Today as Hamgar was admiring Elenora’s miniatures, Bertrand, unnoticed by the artisans below, was beginning to get it. His little wings began trembling with excitement. His arrow slotted onto the string and with frowning concentration Bertrand began to draw it slowly back. But his cute little pudgy fingers couldn’t hold the arrow and suddenly [...]

    Hamgar never really noticed the fat little Cherubs flying around, or sitting on the beams above him. For as long as he could remember, Cherubs had always been everywhere, so common that he no longer saw them, and if he had, well, they were nothing to do with him at this time in [...]

Note to Libya: Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the [...]

From time to time over the next few weeks Sir Roger will be sharing the tragickly true mediæval story of Hamgar and Elenora whose secret he unearthed only recently. Today he offers the introduction. The Extraordinary Tale Behind The Discovery Of The Tragic Love Story Of Hamgar, Elenora And Bertrand More than one hundred years [...]

From today’s New York Times: Secret U.S. Memo Made Legal Case to Kill a Citizen The Obama administration’s secret legal memorandum that opened the door to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Muslim cleric hiding in Yemen, found that it would be lawful only if it were not feasible to take him alive, [...]

  Sir Roger’s close confidante writes: My mother used to ask me if I wouldn’t prefer to work in a bank. In those days it was a safe occupation – safe as a bank, literally. A job for life with almost guaranteed promotion. I don’t think she was joking. Both her brothers – my uncles [...]

    Louis CK on being white. Sir Roger nearly choked on his Château Barréjat, spat out the truffle-marinated baby’s nipples…before realising it was shockingly true.  

  So Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is moved by humanitarian motives. Probably in the same way as his predecessor Philip Ruddock was a fair dinkum believer in the values of Amnesty International while he was ruthlessly screwing the lives of countless fellow human beings. “Let your heart bleed publicly for the oppressed while cruelly oppressing [...]

What a fucking load of motherfucking dickheaded bullshit those cunts in the Victorian parliament are, trying to impose old-fashioned tight-arsed, pursed-lipped, prune-faced, shrivelled-up, broomstick-arsed moral values on a free people, with their proposed laws against swearing in public. Goodbye barracking at fucking footie matches, for one thing. Or having a bloody beer in the pub. [...]

  David Hume, hero of the Enlightenment, father of skepticism, linchpin of democracy and human rights and freedoms, Happy 300th Birthday! Sir Roger has some understanding of how Hume felt when he said this: “Here am I who have written on all sorts of subjects calculated to excite hostility, moral, political, and religious, and yet [...]