Existentialist Bat v Ayn Rand’s Dullard
I mean, it could have been worse. I was late to watching the movie – anyone with young children is always late to doing anything – but all I’d heard in the lead-up was the splat of pop-cultural fans and …
Is your newspaper reading you?
There is a meme that circulates every few months. A picture, black and white, the 1950s perhaps, everyone on a train with their head buried in a newspaper. It comes with a subtitle along the lines of: ‘All this technology …
The Samurai, the Gunslinger, the Private Eye: Modernity’s Antagonists
Red Harvest, Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars: Remaking the Remake
The American Western was revitalised by an Italian director inspired by a Japanese filmmaker with a love of hardboiled fiction.
This is the strange international pedigree of the ground-breaking A …
Americans Destroy Science Fiction
Equity
The Americans have done it again. The conservative wing has rigged the Hugo Awards, turning it into a list of ideological screeds, petty revenge stories, and comedic gay erotica. The progressive wing will no doubt punch back, like …
Rupert’s Run
When an individual earns a billion dollars, they are legally killed by society and their wealth redistributed*. This killing is televised: a SWAT team with go-pros enters the palatial residence, or chandeliered bunker, or mahogany-clad private jet, and puts a …
Fathers: An Extremely Important Third Wheel
There’s s scene in the classic Australian movie, The Castle, where clueless suburban lawyer Dennis Denuto finds himself in the High Court of Australia. He’s assisting a Queen’s Council argue a complex case of constitutional law. Completely out of his …
Oscar Predictions (and Bets)
Mad Max Fury Road will walk away with seven Oscars this year. Three Oscars less than this masterpiece warrants. 
The ones that really matter and that Fury Road deserves to win – Picture, Director, and Cinematography – will go to …
Fast Start to a Slow Year
Hectic beginning to the year after moving back home from Vietnam. Started a PhD, second child on the way, so much cricket to watch.
My writing output has suffered: it’s the worst start to a year, in terms of words, …
Hanoi: A Love Letter
I love this town.
The frenetic pace, the unapologetic culture, the dynamism of Hanoi. This is a city always 
on the move; horizontal, with scooters swarming through teaming streets; vertical, as mammoth yellow cranes raise buildings up from craters into …
Fish for Dinner: Culture shock at home, abroad, and online
Abroad
They say the most stressful experiences are as follows:
- Death in the family
- Divorce
- Moving house
- Major Illness
- Changing Jobs
Moving countries has a lot of 3 and 5 in it, plus saying goodbye to friends. I’ve just moved …