Kings Cross has nothing on this sinister, sordid Roman vestry. On stage in Melbourne, Tosca offers more sex, more sadism, more brutal police corruption than anything served up in Underbelly.
April, 2010
Daily Proposition: Frock up for the gloriously gothic opera of Tosca
Morning Market Report: Goldman Sachs’ lawsuit causes market fall
Worst percentage fall in two months after the SEC brought a lawsuit for fraud against Goldman Sachs. Investment banks fell 9.4%, with financials the worst sector and Wall St closing down 125.
Media briefs: How Murdoch missed the Goldman scoop … Pulitzer winner’s Apple ban
In going after the NY Times, Nieman asks if the WSJ is making itself vulnerable on its bread and butter of finance. Plus, the Pulitzer winner who can’t get his app on the iPhone and other global media news.
Video of the Day: How to pronounce ‘Eyjafjallajökull’
Dear newsreaders: You’re doing it wrong.
Tips and rumours: Tips and rumours: A foreign raid on Balwyn?
A colleague just advised me that a foreign investor recently bought up to 100 houses in Melbourne’s Balwyn area — in cash, too. As a local resident, I’m seriously concerned.
This day in Crikey: Tuesday 19th April 2005
Tuesday 19th April, 2005, Health on the Sick List, by Christian Kerr.
Crikey Says: Anyone for calamari?
This morning Crikey consulted a timeline of the 141-year-old investment bank Goldman Sachs. It’s from 2007 that things get interesting.
Coriander-phobia: why the green garnish tastes soapy to some, sublime to others
Why do some people hate coriander so passionately? Apparently, it’s not their fault they’re so misguided: it’s a medical problem — and also a psychological one.
The true story behind the “saddest book ever written”
Every man and his blog are claiming to have discovered the “saddest book ever written”: Microwave Cooking for One. The author’s daughter, Tracy Grant, is less amused. She tells the real story behind the pages.
Adoption: it’s (not always) for life
When children older than seven are adopted — often from orphanages overseas, suffering severe emotional or physical trauma — adoption failure rates are about 15%. But it’s not fair to blame the families, writes Susan Scarf Merrell.
The Tea Party gets a TV network
The US’s right-wing Tea Party movement is starting a TV network called RIGHTNETWORK, for “Americans who are looking for content that reflects and reinforces their perspective and worldview.” Fox is suddenly looking decidedly “fair and balanced”.
It’s my iPhone, and I’ll break it if I want to
Companies like Apple and Sony are doing everything they can to stop users from modding, hacking and jailbreaking their gadgets. But if people want risk poking and playing around with their expensive tech toys, that’s their right, argues Devin Coldewey.
VIDEO: Sketching the UK election
“He’s got these quite sensual lips, has Gordy”, says cartoonist Steve Bell of PM Gordon Brown, as Bell discusses drawing the three UK party leaders at their manifesto launches.
The anti-virus app cage match
Maximum PC tests and compares the top 10 anti-virus applications for keeping your PC (relatively) bug-free. Whose security screen reigns supreme?
Imagining a world without planes
With air-traffic at a standstill across Europe, writer and author Alain de Botton imagines a world without the flying machines about which we constantly bitch and moan. Maybe they’re not so bad after all…
How to draw a kookaburra
It’s a challenge to sketch such fugitive subjects like kookaburras and cockatoos but the point is to observe, explains W H Chong, as he shares his drawings of a kookaburra in progress. Tip: start with the head.
An interview with the Pope’s US lawyer
What’s it like being the advocate for the man who is supposed to be God’s representative on Earth? And what happens when he’s caught up in a worldwide sex abuse cover-up scandal? Meet Jeffrey Lena: the California litigator who may have one of the worst jobs on the planet.
How Darwin killed werewolves
The werewolf topped the A-list of mythical creatures-of-the-night, until Darwin’s theory of evolution came along, and suddenly it was Bigfoot, the Yeti and the Sasquatch playing a starring role in our nightmares.
The ash cloud costs soar for passengers and airlines
Emirates has put a cost of $10 million a day on the volcanic ash crisis, Singapore Airlines says it is too busy looking after passengers to start counting, and Qantas agrees, reports Ben Sandilands.
Film review: Beneath Hill 60 — engrossing war pic
Brendan Cowell and a supporting cast of top shelf Aussie actors generate rousing performances from behind a couple of inches of mud and grime in Beneath Hill 60, writes Luke Buckmaster.
Noonan: How to save the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is not beyond salvation, argues Peggy Noonan, but it will take a new culture of openness and repentance, and a new generation of priests and nuns, to do it.
revealed 
Apple’s patent application for 3D glasses
Is 3D Apple’s next big iMove? The company has applied for a patent for a pair of 3D glasses, complete with inbuilt earphones, infrared sensors, voice and motion control. Read the full application
