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  In a reputation-shredding sentence, the writer of a letter to the Editor of the South Australian Register  (dated 18 February 1867), remembered "reading a graphic account given by your special correspondent last May of the miseries of the South-Eastern overland journey as it then was". The original report, published 28 July 1866 and headed 'THE SOUTH-EAST DISTRICT. From our Special Correspondent. THE OVERLAND JOURNEY.', did indeed begin gloomily: "On a dull drizzling morning ― Monday, May 28 ― a little before 5 o'clock, I ascended at the door of Roger's Inn , Narracoorte, the somewhat nondescript conveyance provided by Mr Rounsevell for the conveyance of H.M. mails from the South-East to Adelaide. The appearance of the turn-out in the grey morning was anything but promising. The vehicle ― a square box on wheels ― looked very clumsy and suggestive of aching bones, and the couple of horses provided by the contractor were poor, rawboned, hungry-looking bru

  "Modern interest in the ancient Pictish peoples of Scotland was both reflected and stimulated by the publication in 1955 of a book called The Problem of the Picts . Unfortunately this choice of title has led to a situation where the Picts have continued to be perceived as essentially enigmatic, even unknowable ... Because we have no written records from the Picts themselves, they can seem almost historically invisible. Scotland as a whole has virtually no surviving documents from the First Millennium ... "  (pp. 21,17, A New History of the Picts ) Two publications have caused some of this historical mist to clear. Both articles extend the reality of Pictland back to the era of Roman Britain. "The development of the Pictish symbol system: inscribing identity beyond the edge of Empire" (G Noble and others, 2018, Antiquity , 92.365, 1329-1348), uses radiocarbon dating of archaeological sites to establish a cultural continuum of stone art. " Picti : from Roman na

  Judith Brett is one of the very few commentators who actually get  conservative politics in Australia. Her insights follow on from her special understanding of the two 'great' Liberal Party Prime Ministers of the postwar period, Robert Menzies and John Howard. Brett's essays in her anthology,  Doing Politics: Writing on Public Life  (2021), demonstrate an instinctive grasp of what made these 'giants' of the non-Labor stage stand out. It was not so much the longevity of their terms in office, although their run of electoral successes certainly distinguished them from other Liberal leaders. It is Brett's view that it was was Menzies' and Howard's defining political rhetoric that elevated them to pillar-status. Their words, in the 1942 radio broadcast Menzies' Forgotten People  and a 1995 party pamphlet The Australia I Believe In , went beyond   a standard rehearsal of catch-all phrases and platitudes. Instead these examples encompassed an invitation

TRUMP BITS: (a) In the Ring / On the Stage       "I'm a total act", Trump told Anthony Scaramucci, "and I don't understand why people don't get it". [Insights from BS Day & A Wedderburn, 2022, 'Wrestlemania! Summit Diplomacy and Foreign Policy Performance after Trump',  International Studies Quarterly , <doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqac019>].      "Trump gravitated towards wrestling throughout his business career. Indeed, in a life marked by vacillation and inconstancy toward everyone except himself, the recurring presence of the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) is a striking anomaly. Trump's resorts frequently hosted WWE events, Trump himself regularly lent his celebrity to WWE promotions, and he even performed in prominent wrestling storylines. The association not only survived Trump's political ascendancy but thrived during his time in office. In 2016, WWE's majority owners Vince and Linda McMahon ― contemporary pro-wrest