ANGLOSPHEROID:

What are the odds that one of the world's best political commentators happens to be an expert on the songs of Cole Porter? Or that he knows more about Frank Sinatra's singing than all of Australia's commentariat put together? Or that this same person happens to be funny, and I mean fall on the ground, laugh-out-loud funny? So funny that he can be writing about something catastrophic - the rapid decline of Western civilization, say, or the creeping lack of will across the West's political class to defend freedom of speech (are you listening Tony Abbott and George Brandis?) - and yet do so in a way that will make you laugh until tears run down your face.

I refer, of course, to Mark Steyn. Hugh Hewitt, the American talk show host, describes Steyn as 'columnist to the world'.   That is because Steyn has written for outlets in the UK (think the Daily Telegraph, the Independent and the world's and Australia's best weekly, as all those reading this review will agree, The Speccie). He's written for US publications (think National Review, think Wall Street Journal, think the Atlantic, and more). He's written for Canada's National Post and its main weekly Macleans. Heck, the man appears every now and again in the Australian.

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