Germans with Suntans

I'm on a flying visit to Australia and much as I love the country of my birth the oh-so-negative national mood can be a bit much. Sure, the national political scene is a cruel joke and the misallocated bounty accruing from the decades-long mining boom is distorting the wider economy but, jeez, can't you all just lighten?

The once healthy scepticism of politicians is now an outright contempt that has seemingly bled over into every sphere of life. Just as all achievements are the consequence of unearned luck all setbacks are deserved. Australians don't save enough. Don't pay enough taxes. Don't do enough for the poor or the sick. Don't care enough about the marginal lives of the original inhabitants. Don't feature on the world stage for any worthwhile purpose. Except that they do. They do all of these things and more.

As I've said before in these pages, the national psyche we resemble most in Europe is the Germans; law-abiding, sober and with a wary eye on the future. But try telling that to an Aussie without creating offence. So there's obviously something (bad) going on here that I'm missing.

That's the problem with flying visits - by the time you've sorted through the distortions you're already on the flight out. Then again, on Sunday night I did see a guy sleeping rough outside the Salvation Army passing the time by watching a film on his MacBook Air...