COLD WAR GAMES: Espionage, Spies and Secret Operations at the 1956 Olympic Games by Harry Blutstein Bonnier, Richmond Paperback: 336 pages Price: AUD$32.99 Reviewed by Bill James There was only one defection at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. An athlete from Cameroon stayed on in China after the Games, decided he didn’t like it, and returned…
THE SECRET CODE-BREAKERS OF CENTRAL BUREAU: How Australia’s Signals Intelligence Network Helped Win the Pacific War by David Dufty Scribe, Melbourne Hardcover: 352 pages Price: AUD$49.99 Reviewed by Chris Rule At the Canberra Writers festival in August this year, David Dufty, the author of The Code-breakers of Central Bureau: How Australia’s Signals Intelligence Network Helped…
This year is the 75th anniversary of Casablanca, the romantic and resonant melodrama praised by Umberto Eco for fusing together clichés and archetypes in such a moving way that it reaches Homeric depths and gives a glimpse of the sublime. The movie is a triumph of the Hollywood Golden Age studio system, a masterpiece whose…
One of the most elusive and intriguing areas to examine in music is something other than the music: lyrics. Although superficially similar to poetry, the priorities are very different. The most important aspect of lyrics is how they sound; the musicality comes first. In poetry the phonics, the musicality, is important – Shakespeare’s, Milton’s or…
