September 06, 2014

Wholly

By various symbols and a five-color code, the city's hotels, apartments and rooming houses are rated either moral, immoral or 'undetermined'. The immoral category, vastly outnumbering the other two, is subdivided into accommodation where immorality is 'countenanced or ignored', places where immoral tenants are 'desired or preferred', and houses 'wholly given up to immorality'.

September 05, 2014

Centenary

We are just past the starting line of a four-year marathon of Great War commemorations.

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The cost of the centenary to Australian state and federal taxpayers – to say nothing of an expectedly vast contribution from private donors – will be in the region of $320 million.

To put that into perspective, the UK has set aside ‘just’ £55 million (around $100 million) for the commemorations, despite the fact that its military casualties vastly outnumbered those of Australia: 750,000 deaths as against 60,000.