Sydney Sings Verdi Requiem If you’re in Sydney next weekend (3pm Sunday 28 April) Sir Roger has a shameless plug for you. Actually, Sir Roger has a PEAK MUSICAL AND SENSUAL EXPERIENCE FOR YOU (Sir Roger knows how much you like a sensual experience.) This year marks Verdi’s 200th birthday and the truly excellent [...]

  Sir Roger wishes to … actually Sir Roger wishes he didn’t have to … mark the 10th anniversary of the most murderous international crime of the last 60 years: the Shocking, awe-full invasion of Iraq. Sir Roger is shocked and dismayed that not a single one of the war criminals – downing a celebratory [...]

So Arthur Sinodinos failed to remember six companies of which he was a director and failed to declare this in his Parliamentary Register of Interest. Either he is stupid or incompetent. And if you were the Chairman of one of the companies Sinodinos “forgot” to declare, since he is obviously not at all engaged with [...]

In one the most savagely beautiful and exceptional works of fiction, the book of John begins, “In the beginning was the word…”

We interrupt this pre-recorded segment to bring you an impromptu message from our sponsor. Sir Roger has been touched by the loyalty of one of his longterm readers and a fellow-blogger to muse on the importance of friends. What is a friend? A friend is someone who cares, fosters, encourages and shares, someone who is [...]

Sir Roger is returned from the Mountain with the Migently Mountain Manifesto and here are Tablets One to Five: 1.   Do what is right.     2.   You are safe. Now, at this instant, you are safe. You are safe, right here, right now. This might allow you to calm down and get [...]

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 [...]

  Sir Roger believes Malcolm Turnbull could easily be the next Prime Minister of Australia. What do you think? Here’s why: 1) The coalition and the right wing media will bring too much pressure on Julia Gillard about the Slater and Gordon quagmire – either facts or compelling implications – so that either she can’t [...]

  How do you think Australia’s economy is going, compared to the rest of the world?   Sir Roger wonders because some rainbow-lovers say it’s magnificent and some shrill hurricane chasers say we’re going to hell in a handbasket and doom is upon us. Sir Roger had his servan staff do some forensic research. They [...]

Sir Roger is generally a jovial fellow when not contemplating the tragic, terrifying farce that is politics both national and global. But he was bemused and then tickled with annoyance by a somewhat acquaintance who seems on the one hand to be a decent and committed man dedicated to and driven by service to others [...]

We, the Most Powerful Nations of the World, having met face to face and flab to flab for two days in the beachside resort of Los Cabos Mexico, and having carefully avoided any difficult topics or trodden on any sensitive toes, are immensely proud to be able to now release our joint communiqué of enough [...]

  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 [...]

Source: fromupnorth.com on Pinterest   On this definition most of the press, radio and television – at least the “popular” versions – are very small indeed. So are most of the politicians who spewed their vitriol over the last week, including especially Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan and the country’s most boring politician since [...]

Where has Sir Roger been? Why has he been absent from his adoring public? Well, first and least, how could Sir Roger satirise Australian politics any more than Australia’s laughingstock politicians were doing by themselves? How could he point out the ridiculous any more clearly than the ridiculous politicians themselves? It is an unavoidable fact [...]