18 January

More thoughts about Australia Day. Maybe it should be called ‘Coast Day’. We landed on the shores here, and never really left them. The overwhelming majority of Australians live on the coast, it’s almost like they can’t bear the thought of having anything much to do at all with the vast rest of the country. And the favourite past-time of these coastal dwelllers? Travel, ‘getting away’. Australia is barely inhabited. Physically and emotionally. I see patriotism for example as a desperate, emotional attempt to find meaning in a place we never really came to terms with.