Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Australia is a bloody big country. We've got bloody great big bits of water, bloody great big deserts, bloody great big trees, bloody great big sharks, crocs, snakes, spiders, wombats and bloody great big snags. When I took this photo of Henry the other day, he turned to me and said "look at that bloody great big mountain, are there any bloody great big yowies up there?"

I didn't know. I've not seen any.

So another Australia Day has come around again. It's a funny kind of day, Australia Day. It used to pass by pretty much unnoticed, and then the bloody Bicentenary came along is a haze of canary yellow and lime green and Australia day all of a sudden was bigger than Ben Hur in a pair of budgie smugglers and thongs!

Then, along comes John Howard (with a bit of help from his mate Pauline Hanson), and we've got these bloody great big flags everywhere. You can't turn without spotting a beach towel, singlet, bikini thong or set of BBQ tongs emblazoned with that god awful flag of ours. As noted in that comments thread the other day, there is no small irony that most of this tat is also labelled Made in China, which is a turn-up for the books that I'm sure those flag wavers who long for the days of the White Australia Policy enjoy very much.

So yeah, I'm not a big fan of Australia Day, as I shall explain on the ron.