To win Thailand’s biggest transsexual beauty pageant, you need a number of near-impossible things on your side. It helps if you’re tall, although big hands and feet are a minus. You’ll be told you need to look “natural”, even though organisers and judges have been known to pull contestants aside, and encourage them to undertake more cosmetic surgery. Above all, the judges will want you to look like a “real girl”, even though the competition’s premise is that you were originally born with male sex organs. “The whole idea,” one …

Political pundits in Australia have it difficult sometimes. When your job requires making politics engaging—even outrageous—to the public, it’s taxing when the source material is so monumentally boring. Cast your mind over the past few months. The most interesting talking point Canberra has yielded has revolved around a ute. Did Kevin Rudd obtain this ute legally? Who has seen the documents related to this ute? Does the ute still exist? Where is the ute now? The ute, the ute! Man, it was tedious. While a politician like Silvio Berlusconi was …