35 h. ago My Cultural Awakening: I moved across the world after watching a Billy Connolly documentary

A chance viewing of the comic’s World Tour of Scotland made me swap Australia for the Highlands, although things didn’t quite go to plan I was 23 and thought I had found my path in life. I’d always wanted to work with animals, and I had just landed a job as a vet nurse in Melbourne. I was still learning the ropes, but I imagined I would stay there for years, building a life around the work. Then, five months in, the vet called me into his office and told me it wasn’t working out. “It’s not you,” he said, “I just really hate training people.” His previous nurse had been with him for decades; she knew his every move. I didn’t. And just like that, I was out of a job.I drove home crying, feeling utterly adrift. I wasn’t sure whether to try again at another vet clinic or rip up the plan entirely and do something else. After spending a few days floating around aimlessly, trying to recalibrate my life, I turned on the TV, needing something to take my mind off things. And there he was: Bill...

Culture

66 h. ago Cristiano Ronaldo sent off as Troy Parrott’s brace earns Ireland famous victory over Portugal

Ireland head for Hungary on Sunday knowing victory would secure runners-up spot in Group F.

Politics

4 d. ago Criminal 'Big Head' handed police 'treasure map' marking spot where Skorpion submachine guns were buried

Thomas 'Bomber' Kavanagh, who was the CEO of the Kinahan Cartel's European drug network, was arrested in 2019.

Events

8 d. ago My cultural awakening: The Big Lebowski inspired me to embrace unemployment

The Dude’s relaxed attitude towards the pressures of life helped me realise it was better to be jobless than stuck in one I hatedQuitting your job in your 30s with no solid plan is generally considered poor decision-making. Doing it because you watched The Big Lebowski is probably even worse. But as I faced up to what would be my eighth year in an IT role, I watched Jeff Bridges meandering his way through the chaos of life in a dressing gown. And I found myself thinking: maybe the Dude had it figured out.For most of my working life, my identity has been strongly bolstered by work: doing well career-wise felt like evidence of my utility and respectability (despite the fact no one ever really understood what my job was anyway). And, like most millennials, I’d felt exceptionally lucky to eventually get a grad job out of university at all, especially one that paid more than a “living wage”. On top of that, as a second generation immigrant, I’d bee...

Politics

1 week ago Three decades later, The Truman Show feels freshly disturbing – and astoundingly prescient

Peter Weir’s dystopian comedy, starring Jim Carrey as the unwitting star of his own reality TV series, takes on new resonance in the techno-capitalist eraGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailThe great Australian director Peter Weir is perhaps underrated as an auteur, simply because his filmography doesn’t follow any thematic or stylistic principle; each of his contributions feels like a complete work of art unto itself. While Picnic at Hanging Rock remains his finest work, his foray into Hollywood culminated in the utterly transfixing, intermittently horrifying Jim Carrey vehicle The Truman Show. Almost 30 years after its theatrical release, the film has only grown in stature and prescience.Ostensibly a dark satire on voyeurism and the inexhaustible manipulations of the media, The Truman Show predated the television juggernaut Big Brother by a single year, and it’s hard not to see something causal in that. Both are about surveillance and the murky line separating reality from ...

Politics

1 week ago Asda Christmas advert 2025 review: Doesn't this betray Dr Suess' original Grinch message?

Green may be on theme but this festive budgeting musical doesn’t quite live up to the camp criminal legacy of Jim Carrey’s meanie

Politics

1 week ago Asda Christmas advert 2025 review: how the Grinch survived the cozzy livs

Green may be on theme but this festive budgeting musical doesn’t quite live up to the camp criminal legacy of Jim Carrey’s meanie

Events

3 w. ago My cultural awakening: A Jim Carrey series made me embrace baldness – and shave my head on the spot

I was a mess of insecurities, trying to hide thinning hair, worried I was ageing too quickly. Then a scene in the TV show Kidding changed everythingGrowing up, I was obsessed with Jim Carrey. I was just entering my teens when The Mask came out, and I can still picture myself watching Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls on TV one weekend afternoon, absolutely howling at the silliness of it. His elastic facial expressions, the energy, the stunts – it was the perfect tenor of humour for a young boy.By the time I was in college, I had moved on to his more thoughtful films. The Truman Show was a favourite: still funny, but with a philosophical edge that spoke to me at the time. I loved seeing Carrey stretch into more serious roles, and as the internet made it easier to watch interviews, I came to admire him as a person, too. Continue reading...

Culture

4 w. ago My cultural awakening: ‘The Specials helped me to stop fixating on death’

After several people close to me died I became obsessed with fitness and gripped by panic attacks. But then a ska cover taught me life doesn’t have to be serious all the timeMy anxious disposition means I think about death a lot. But a cluster of people I loved dying in 2023, and most of them unexpectedly and within a few months of each other, was enough to shake my nervous system up pretty significantly. Five funerals is too many. The first was my nan: she was the family matriarch. The oldest person in the family, so there was a level of acceptance among the sadness. But soon after it was her son, and then her granddaughter (my cousin). The latter two were shocks, completely upending my nervous system, one compounding the other. From there, two more followed. Death was all around. It wasn’t just a part of life by that point – it was something to expect soon and often.At first I seemed fine. Despite concerned friends and partners asking if I was hiding anything, ...

Events