Bob Menzies and Gamal Nasser
By Shane Maloney
Prime Minister Menzies did not think very highly of Egyptians. “These Gyppos are a dangerous lot of backward adolescents, full of self importance and ignorance,” he recorded in his diary. He was just the man, in short, to head a diplomatic mission to Cairo to negotiate with the Egyptian president, Gamal Nasser.
In 1956, Nasser, whose modernising regime had overthrown the playbo
An incurious encounter takes flight
The Insult
By Peter Robb
It was getting dark and the plane for Darwin was almost full. Well back in Economy, the two seats between me and the window were empty. The doors were about to close. I was reading my book, and hoping to spread out later. Eric Ambler was made for moments like this. At the last minute a couple arrived. They were – to me – youngish, in their thirties, and they could only have been Greek. I
Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals
By Anna Krien
It was around midnight when I got off the tram at the last stop in Melbourne’s north. As the doors locked behind me, two men, one bare-chested, ran across the street, traffic swerving, and stood in front of the tram, arms crossed. Their eyes were opaque, faces shiny with sweat. “Take us to the city,” one yelled, while the other went around to the driver’s window and started banging on it with his fist. “This is the last s
