The Australian, 4 July 2008
It wasn’t a typical awards night. The serial award-winner No Country for Old Men received only one award (the latest for actor Javier Bardem), while the four awards for best film went to the likes of Enchanted and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Meanwhile, Ratatouille and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End each won two awards, There will be Blood won nothing, and Juno wasn’t even nominated. It wasn’t televised free-to-air like the Oscars, but considering the box-office of the winning films, compared with any of this year’s Oscar frontrunners, perhaps it should have been.
Sun-Herald – July 20, 2008
The guide points the way. “It’s through there,” she says. “Your first challenge is to find your way in.” While she cheerfully watches us, offering no clues, our small group tries to find our way through the door of the International Spy Museum in Washington DC. Eventually, a bright spark works out the code.
Sun-Herald – March 2, 2008
It is known as the “Charm City”, which might suggest to an Australian that it is utterly charmless. Fortunately, the US doesn’t do irony, so Charm City really is charming. Located in the state of Maryland, between Pennsylvania and Virginia, it’s a happy fusion of the urbane north and the hospitable south.
Journalist, editor, economist and commentator. Born Melbourne, October 27, 1938. Died Sydney, January 26, 2008. When P. P. McGuinness – a long-time critic of the federal honours system – accepted an Order of Australia in 2003 for service to journalism, he had just written one of his most memorable columns for the Sydney Morning Herald. [...]
Sun-Herald – August 5, 2008
Despite Austrian, Russian and Romanian tourists flocking to its beaches, Ferris wheels and restaurants, Bulgaria is still perhaps the greatest secret of the former Eastern Bloc (apart from Albania).
The Canberra Times – Monday Column: June 25, 2007
I was going to start today with some pithy one-liner about Naomi Campbell or someone equally ridiculous, or even a highly amusing anecdote about a rabbi, a priest and a guy with one leg. But then it occurred to me how dangerous that could be.
The Canberra Times – Monday Column: June 18, 2007
In my latest attempt to return to my childhood, I recently found myself listening to one of my favourite groups of the time: Bucks Fizz. Remember them? Now THAT was a pop group!
The Canberra Times, 21 March 2007
In the mid-1980s, when it was difficult to avoid Howard Jones synth-pop songs on the radio, it was easy to describe them as, well, “nice”. Whether his name conjures up the infectious opening chords of “Life in One Day”, the super-catchy “Like to get to Know You Well”, or even the mournful (but eminently danceable) “What is Love?”, you could be forgiven for saying something as silly as “Gee, that’s a nice song.”
Born Rockhampton, 1946. Died Sydney, October 29, 2006.
For Australian television writers, Scales of Justice (1983) was a promising sign. For years, while the most respected British and American writers had become almost as famous for their TV work as the actors, their Australian counterparts had suffered in obscurity. Scales of Justice, however, was unquestionably “a Robert Caswell series”.
The Australian 13 November 2006
This opinion piece received plenty of media coverage. When Prime Minister John Howard was asked about it on ABC Radio, he said that he was flattered to be compared to Kylie Minogue. Even the editorial blurb (written by The Australian, not the author) suggested it was a compliment. It wasn’t meant to be.
