...Recovered from Australia Day

Yesterday was Australia Day. I had a terrific day, but ended up going to bed with a splitting headache. Not that I'm complaining, as I realize that's just sometimes how it goes. Particularly when you sit in the park for roughly ten hours, in the sun, drinking wine. I did also eat fructose-free vegetable fritatta and tabbouleh made from quinoa (a random and exotic grain I never knew existed until wheat became my nemesis). However, mostly in my day there was the sun and there was the wine. So waking up this morning was near impossible. Covering my persimmon coloured nose, similarly impossible. Having to work all day with the remnants of the splitting headache I had started to develop about 6pm the previous night (but continued to drink my way through for another couple of hours) turned out to be possible, but fairly unpleasant. Yet as I looked around my office at the patchy brown/ red/ browny-red faces of my colleagues, I was comforted by the fact I was not alone.

Ahhh, Australia Day. What a unifying force you have on us. Australian's all let us rejoice for we use the public holiday to drink just a little too much and forget to apply adequate sunscreen.

And that little ode is as far as I'll ever go towards proclaiming chest-beating and flag-waving support for January 26th. In fact, I never flag-wave. I make a conscientious objection to flag-waving, particularly on Australia Day. I do like Australia Day... because it's a public holiday at a time of year we've got good weather. It means I can get my friends together in the park when we'd otherwise be chained to our desks. We can say "damn the man" without having to take any annual leave! Weeee! But as for flag-waving when there are no other flags being waved at the same time (like at a nice sports party like the Olympics)? I'll leave that for those who do fun things in their spare time like race riot on Sydney beaches.

And that, my dears, is the uncomfortable fact we sweep under the southern cross and union jack. We have to remember that "our" flag is a flag of colonisation. A flag that the racist and undereducated can still use to say "I belong here more than you do".

So until you give me a new flag to wave which doesn't scream "You have to be white to wrap yourself in this! Yee-hah I love being white!" I won't do it. That's why I want a new flag. One with a dreamtime kangaroo (in a Ferrari jacket) and a Chinese dragon (wearing a kilt) making out underneath the southern cross... in front of a gay pride rainbow. And until the day I get that new flag I want, you won't see me proclaiming all things "Aussie" on January 26th in any hurry. My Australia Day tradition will, instead, continue to be to drink too much wine in the park and then trundle back to work the next day, grumbling as I go (without a flag in sight).