What an Eighth Grader Taught Me About Status

George Orwell attacked the Billy Bunter stories as snobbish propaganda. Their creator, Frank Richards, wrote back and won one of the few fights Orwell lost.  Written by David Cohen, read by William Lang. https://quillette.com/2026/08/08/billy-bunter-and-the-man-from-animal-farm-charles-hamilton-george-orwell/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bio-cultural anthropologist, Robert Lynch, shares how an eighth grader's prank on a 510-million-year-old fossil changed his view on status and self-worth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A philosopher explains how 7 October exposed decolonisation as a dangerous, Manichaean ideology — not harmless academic theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Australia’s war on tobacco created a $5.6B black market and a surge in gang violence. Written by Andrew Bushnell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During my time chairing the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, I sometimes felt like the agent of a state-funded extortion ring, writes David Thomas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What remains of a person, an institution, or a civilisation that dishonours itself when Jews and Israel become the targets of hatred and violence? By Yuki Zeman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Michael Jackson's new biopic crosses $790 million at the box office, the allegations against him remain largely unaddressed by mainstream culture. In this long read for Quillette, Andrew Hammel examines the evidence methodically — the police searches at Neverland, the corroborated physical descriptions, the pattern of relationships with boys from vulnerable homes, and the accounts of Wade Robson and Jimmy Safechuck. Jackson was acquitted at trial in 2005, and Hammel weighs that fact alongside the rest of the record. The result is one of the most thorough and dispassionate examinations of the case to date. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Enhanced Games handed athletes a boatload of drugs. They still ran slower than high school boys, missed every world record, and proved that steroids can't replace talent plus daily boring work. Written by Steve Magness, a performance coach and the author of Do Hard Things. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Calls to “globalise the intifada” have produced a wave of antisemitic terror and encourage an unending cycle of violence. By ⁠John Aziz⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The hard Left has once again allied itself with Islamists in the belief that they will help achieve its goals, hence repeating the mistake the communists made in 1979, in revolutionary Iran. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices