Awesome comeback Rainer!

And nice work Saintfletcher.

And as for Spider, the BDO controversy was not about preventing immigrants being offended by the Aussie flag but controlling the boneheads that were beating 3 colours of [rhymes with] pit out of those that refused to kiss said flag. They disguised their racism as patriotism. Last I checked, being beaten up is just a tad more uncomfortable than being merely offended.

As an Australian-born and proud Aussie with Asian heritage I just know that these boneheads would've targeted me and those with my Middle Eastern Appearance(tm) with their "moy granfarvva fought free wurld wurs to keep youse outta this country" refrains. The fact that three generations of my family on BOTH sides (hello, some Asian nations were allies!) that fought for or alongside the ADF (all services) and were decorated for it; that I speak and write better English, and that I know the national anthem (both verses) seems lost on these bogans and those that share their thuggish sentiments.

Oh and nice unfounded generalisation about the chardonnay-swilling leftie author, btw. Cripes! Well, allow me to return fire. I can safely assume then that you are some freckle-faced, mousey haired, prematurely aged, slightly overweight, meat-n-three veg eating, beer-swilling Anglo-Aussie bogan that derides the edumacated, cannot recite Advance Australia Fair save for fumbling the lyrics after the two opening lines, and lyrically beats their own chest about our fallen but would not join the Army in a fit. Dead-set. :-)

For those who have come across the seas we've boundless plains to share -- Advance Australia Fair

Kiss my ar..

Just for the record...what are we actually celebrating on Australia Day? Last time I checked...it was the British colonisation of land and the subsequent shooting of natives....nice thing to be celebrating on the 26th January. Forgive me if I choose not to kiss the flag and party....

Good article, Dr. Evans.

I was at both this year's and last year's BDO. I can attest to feeling intimmidated last year by a large group of booze soddon, 20 something males. I witnessed a brawl and a friend of mine was punched for not being patriotic enough.

However, despite the large number of flags at this year's BDO, the crowd was very well behaved, and most people, flag waving or not, were kind to each other.

However, I made an interesting observation about the extent of such people's patriotism. While the big international acts (Tool and Muse) were playing at the main stage, Aussie band Something for Kate were plying their trade on the secondary stage. While the main stage was mobbed, few patriots would support Australian talent, depsite Something for Kate being very popular (debuted at number 1 in this year's ARIA charts).

I would have been nice if there was more support for local prroduce.

Yeah Liam, I heard the song on Tripple J too:

"Captain Cook was the very first queue jumper".

Lets face it, Australians can't hip hop.

Captain James Cook was not a queue jumper. He was an explorer. He did not colonise Australia. He was on a scientific expedition to trace the transit of Venus in the south Pacific. While he was down here, did some navigation. Australia Day has nothing to do with Cook.

Interesting that few know that Cook was an outcast from Cornwall. He was a commoner of no particular family class.

The only time they landed to temporarily colonise in Australia by accident for a few months when they crashed into the Great Barrier Reef. The current town called 1770, or Seventeen Seventy sits today. They only settled to fix the Endeavor.

The Endeavor was not a ship, it was a "cat". It had a flat hull. It had been used to haul coal. It was as not impressive aesthetically, but it was built to last. The British had tough little vessels which were usually reliable. Says something about how lethal the Barrier Reef can be. If it was a galleon, it would have been beyond repair.

Even before this, the first European settlement was also temporary. They were Dutch from the Batavia marooned from a ship-wreck on an Island North of Geraldton WA. This was a few hundred years before Cook's expedition. Hundreds were stranded there, women, children, elderly, banished by their Captain who fled to Indonesia.

There was a civil war between the mutineer "Satanists" of an occult and the puritans. The mutineers in charge raped, savaged and killed many whom didn't comply to their wicked ways. You can see remnants of the carnage, piles of fractured skulls on the Island are still there, most preserved. It was an utter disaster. Some survived in the end to tell the story of a legend.

We were then "New Holland".

PS. There is nothing wrong with drinking coffee in the inner city. What do you do? Sit at home in suburbia watching Eddie Macquire's latest game show?

saintfletcher, pedantry is so unAustralian, especially on a public holiday. I suspect The Herd used Capt Cook as rhetorical device rather than in search of historical literalism, and i know their music contains more truth about cultural divisions in Australia than i've heard from published punditry in a decade. As a fourth gen. white aussie i despair of anglo's ever getting over their racism and their hilariously inflated self regard, you do nothing to give me hope.