On 11 November 1918, at the French town of Compiegne, high-ranking officers of the Entente, the coalition that opposed the Central Powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria during World War 1, signed an armistice with Germany, ceasing all hostilities on the Western Front. At eleven o’clock on that morning - the eleventh [...]
The Italians say Revenge is a meal that’s best eaten cold. I guess Jimmy Bulger would have agreed. James Joseph Bulger Junior grew up in abject poverty on the dirt-poor streets of South Boston in the 1930’s and 40’s, along with his two younger brothers, William, better known as “Billy,” and the baby, John, whom [...]
Like beauty itself, art is undoubtedly very much in the eye of the beholder. A couple of years back, a world-renowned Brisbane-born street artist, whose celebrated work is permanently exhibited in the Australian National Gallery and regularly sells for thousands of dollars in the swank art-houses of Sydney and Melbourne, was accused of painting graffiti [...]
Anyone who has been following US domestic politics over the past 12 months will be aware of the fascinating legal storm clouds brewing over the Leader of the Free World, one Mr Donald J Trump. Since May 2017 the stoic and uncompromising former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr Robert Mueller, has led [...]
The nasty news, gossip and scandal that started with Hollywood heavyweight Harvey Weinstein has grown into a tsunami of distasteful allegations of misogynistic and worse sexual misconduct in the United States, reaching to the very upper echelons of the industry. It has been fascinating to watch the reaction from all corners of the community, one [...]
When I first started doing trial work as a young lawyer I was constantly surprised and intrigued by the persistent inconsistency between different eyewitness accounts of the exact same incident. Particularly when dealing with a violent or otherwise shocking event, such as a car crash or a brutal street brawl, no two witnesses seemed to [...]
The other night I had the craziest dream. Remember Haley Joel Osment? He's that cute-but-oh-so-creepy little weird kid with the Sad Sack face who kept seeing dead people in M. Night Shymalan’s 1999 supernatural horror-movie The Sixth Sense. If you were as spooked as I definitely was by that things-that-go-bump-in-the-night ghost story, you won’t have [...]
As a longtime lover of the ‘Sweet Science’, I felt a secret sense of satisfaction in watching the measured way in which Floyd “Money" Mayweather defeated the game and garrulous UFC world champion Conor McGregor on the weekend, with an emphatic TKO in the 10th round of their scheduled 12-round bout in Las Vegas Nevada. Boxing [...]
I read a news story just the other day about a self-declared “grammar vigilante” who reportedly prowls the streets of Bristol, in south-west England, correcting errant punctuation on business signs. Apparently for the past decade or so he has been venturing out late at night, wearing a coat and black hat, to surreptitiously correct sloppy [...]
Some court cases concern life and liberty, some are about money and manipulation, and others grubby politics and power. But in defamation cases everything’s at stake. Our reputation and good name is our most valued asset, because when all is said and done it’s all we have. Youth is transient, beauty skin-deep, and material riches [...]
