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We never studied Australian history at school. Maybe we never actually “studied” at all, but we were schooled if not educated. Either way, there was no such subject as Australian history, just British history and later a sort of general world narrative focussed on heroic leaders and imperial wars. The template for this grand narrative was a map on the wall showing the whole British Empire upon which the sun never set.

It’s so simple it sounds ridiculous. They take everything they can lay their hands on and commodify anything left. The commonwealth is replaced by private assets and the earth is left bare. . .

His last hit song, My Way has been said to epitomize Sinatra - chauvinistic, narcissistic, unapologetc and grandiose. An interesting fact is that it was written by Paul Anka as a rip-off of the French classic Comme d'Habitude. From all that's been written, Sinatra emerges as a conflicted, self-centred weakling with powerful friends, who called the shots. We have to "dig" to get at the man's real beliefs. But as the edited interview shows, we can always learn from anyone - when we listen.

I was in a Carlton bookshop, browsing but not buying. I opened “And the weak suffer what they must” at a random page and read compulsively. Written by Yanis Varoufakis after resigning as Greece’s Finance Minister, this was no economic treatise and certainly no dry text book. It turned out to be...

The Nation, Flag, People and the Continent Itself: It’s hot in Australia at the moment, 41 degrees yesterday in the temperate South East where most of us live. It’ll be Australia Day soon - January 26, the middle …

It's beautiful in our little side garden, but outside that rustic fence corruption fills the big society we call Australia. As always, all things remain, the natural world is always there with the winds and the sun rising each day...

Brexit has put the cat amongst the pigeons. Stock markets in chaos and currency overboard left right and centre. The comment is mainly along thelines of "how could they be so stupid?" but the real dangers lie with enormous inequality.

Frederike Geerdink has reported on Kurdistan for nearly 10 years, until she was deported just before Xmas 2013. She wrote this open letter with restraint, something Erdogan and the Turkish state know little about.