Our friends the Americans, hands on hearts, flags in breeze, tears rolling, have always been good at self-inflation, at hyperbolic pride. It disturbs me that Australians appear to be getting better at it. I can never get around the feeling that there's something dangerously zealous about this kind of behaviour and thinking, that something dark and divisive is swimming about in its undercurrents. The P word relies, too, on a form of consensus delusion. To get us all to agree what a great place this is, we have to lift the carpet and sweep a few things under it.
Patriotism hates dissent.
So I look forward to getting up tomorrow and thinking about the half of the cup that is empty as well as the half that is full, about that which we have done well and that which we could do better.