We cerebral Strines
From Clive James Sir: Rod Liddle writes: We think fondly of the Australians as a nation of informally attired Spring-heeled Jacks, bounding across their strange, arid, orange landscape with a can of lager in one hand and a cricket bat in the other' (Thought for the day, 8 November). If we do, we belong in a red-top tabloid.
The Howard government is noted even by its opponents for the completeness with which it has reversed the emphasis of the Keating government on Australia's identification with Asia. Therefore Mr Liddle's contention that 'Australian politicians regularly pretend to be Asian' makes little sense. Second, his conviction that 'clever
Aussies' maintain a base abroad because of their homeland's deficiencies leaves out the possibility that they might find the competition a bit fierce if they went back. At the time my generation of expatriates arrived in London, the Private Eye crew had fun practising a form of licensed anti-Semitism by which it was assumed that Australians were good for nothing except sport. The view was obsolete even then, and by now not even the few survivors of that cenacle would dare propound it. What they were really reacting against was the awful possibility that some of the interlopers might be able to write rings around them.
Clive James
London SE1
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