Blunt Instrument
I beat Brisbane's peak-hour traffic with muffins and coffee
Brisneylanders are getting back into their cars because whatever governments are doing with public transport isn’t working.
- by John Birmingham
Latest
Opinion
Opinion
An Australian content quota for Netflix? What a pile of Bullpitt
The idea of telling Netflix it has to fill its ‘schedule’ with a quota of fair dinkum content for happy little Vegemiters is so stupid it has a good chance of being made government policy one day.
- by John Birmingham
Amazon
Why I'm barely on talking terms with Apple and Amazon's ladies in a can
“Here’s what I found on the web about your creeping sense of existential dread, JB.”
- by John Birmingham
Anzac Day
Which Anzac Day tweet will set off a holy war this year?
Ferociously policing the meaning of Anzac Day does nothing to improve the lot of veterans who continue to suffer the very real challenge of leaving behind their days in uniform.
- by John Birmingham
Media & marketing
The new television rights deal is just not cricket
Seven and Foxtel’s joint billion-dollar deal for the broadcast rights to Test and limited overs cricket is about as clear a breach of the anti-siphoning legislation as you could hope for.
- by John Birmingham
Opinion
Opinion
For Pete's sake, why are the Commonwealth Games still a thing?
Other than keeping Peter Beattie out from under our feet, is there a reason the Commonwealth Games are still a thing?
- by John Birmingham
What happens when you hide Facebook from your phone's home screen
It’s not just the super-condensed nastiness of social media that leaves me feeling like three-day-old garbage after using it. There is something else.
- by John Birmingham
Australia
What are you really angry about, Australia?
And as a guy who once turned up to some Introduction to Psychology lectures I recognise a guilty hivemind in a fit of collective self-loathing when I see one.
- by John Birmingham
Commonwealth Bank
The truth about 'inconvenience' and the Commonwealth Bank's apology
For affected businesses it meant lost sales, or even just straight-up losses. One cafe just gave away its coffees. But the bank is sorry, everybody.
- by John Birmingham
Opinion
Satire
Border Force has been targeting the wrong foreigners
A foreign crime wave full of foreigners is sweeping our fair city and I quake in anticipation of the swift and terrible action by the Department for Blaming Foreigners for Everything. It is time for the blacksuits to go to war with the Irish.
- by John Birmingham
Opinion
Food
There's nothing sweet about Doughnut Time's demise
I loved the exuberant insanity of that place, the head-cracking super-densities of sugar and stupidity compressed into doughnut form and further squeezed beneath under layer after layer of consume-and-die excess.
- by John Birmingham