25 January

Australia Day? I love Australia, it’s truly unique in the world. Not the imported Barnum and Bailey flag-waving patriotism of the US, which today will be full of. A convict colony that survived being sent to the remote reaches of civilisation, society’s rejects. Dumped in an ancient land which still holds the secret of all human civilisation, that nobody is interested in. The Australian character we like to celebrate is the product of the encounter of those convicts, with humanity’s most ancient land and civilisation. That’s what being truly Australian is, a product of that encounter. Much as I love the Brits, you’d have to be some kind of patsy to celebrate them dumping us here with utter contempt. Which is what 26 January specifically is, the date of the setting up of the penal colony. It’s like cheering on England in the Ashes. Celebrate what we did next, not that.