'A world we must defend’ - Griffith Review

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A picture of a vacant theatre with red velvet chairs

My tiny green teacher

In June 2025, I was one of the many people emotionally wounded by a viral video clip of a little puppet named Tiny Chef (affectionately known as Cheffy) receiving some bad news. I hadn’t heard of this character and his playful children’s show, but the clip had a profound effect on me. It depicts a more potent vulnerability than many human skits achieve.

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In the fullness of time

Non-fictionOur devices and data are more than extensions of our physical bodies. The so-called ‘human-centric’ approach to designing wearable and carriable devices means that they disrupt traditional divisions between work and leisure, production and consumption. It’s difficult not to feel the incursion of work-logics into leisure times and spaces as normal. Stretched for time, couples, families and friendship groups are starting to organise themselves using tools like Slack, Jira, Trello and Asana – that is, in the same way as workplaces.

Louche

Poetry On the bleached beachof café seats, he’s drenched, hairslicked, tarnished as tinespulled up from a shipwreck, savea naughty part:silver forelock a hookswaying as he...

All the boys she ever loved

FictionWhen he left that night with Lacey on his arm, off to go bowling or something, he shook my hand and said Goodnight, David, like it was some big joke or something, and I said Goodnight, David back, and then he was gone and immediately after the door shut, Mel was on my back and saying: You can’t keep doing this, and when I just raised my bad hand up and looked at her, she said: Going so hard on them like that. It’s not doing our daughter any favours. I don’t know why you’re talking about this like it’s some sort of pattern. I’ve only ever got to meet two of them. And she said: Exactly.