Australia's underwhelming capital
We need to talk about Canberra, the landlocked capital of this coast-hugging land.
I should state from the outset that I don't happen to agree with the hoary old joke that the best view of the city comes in the rear-view mirror as you head back to Sydney or Melbourne. Parts of it are stunningly beautiful.
But on a national scorecard that is replete with green and gold stars, you are left with the feeling that Canberra merits only a "could do better".
Put another way, if cities were cars then Melbourne would probably be an Audi (a European feel, well designed and well engineered) and Sydney would probably be a 1970s MG convertible (a bit flash, fabulous in the summer, but prone to occasional breakdowns).
Canberra has something of the Skoda about it, albeit with some pretty fancy add-ons, like the new Parliament House which celebrates its 21st birthday this very week.
Canberra strikes me as oddly unAustralian, to use that dreadful expression. It isn't by the sea (in locating the capital, there were concerns about possible naval bombardment in the event of invasion... which brings to mind what Betjeman said about Slough).
It isn't a whole heap of fun and is devoid of much personality. In fact, large swathes of it are so very quiet it seems almost as if they have been hit by a neutron bomb, eradicating all the people but leaving the buildings intact.
Its original design was the brainchild of an American, the Chicago landscape architect and Frank Lloyd Wright-protege, Walter Burley Griffin.
Its post-war expansion was left to the British town planner, Sir William Holford, who based it on the soulless British "new town" concept.
No wonder Canberra is often called a group of stray suburbs looking for a city.
Fabulously, prime ministers, like Barton and Deakin, have suburbs named after them. Others, presumably, only rise to the level of cul-de-sac.
Not for Canberra the polished marble and Doric columns of Washington DC, which memorialises its fabled presidents with brooding statuettes.
Even the parliament relies on the "Washminster" system, a hybrid of the British and American models. It comes with a House of Representatives and Senate, but also with a Question Time and dispatch boxes.
Fair dinkum, as they say. Canberra has come a long way from being "a bush-capital in no-man's land", as it was described in 1909, when the compromise was reached between Melbourne and Sydney over where to site the capital.
But it has not quite lived up to the boast at the time that it "would rival London in beauty and Athens in art".
But at least the name works. When suggestions initially were canvassed, they ranged from "Olympus" to "Paradise", from "Spamb" to "Tasmelbawalqueen", a devilishly clever acronym, I think you will agree, of the states or the state capitals.
Does any of this matter? To many Australians, I suspect, not at all.
But Canberra may be one of the many reasons why Australia can be a surprisingly fragmented and stunted country - with intense rivalries between the states and angry arguments still over what constitutes the "national interest" (just look at the management of the Murray-Darling basin).
If Canberra engendered more of an emotional or awe-inspiring pull - or captured the national imagination in the same way as, say, Washington DC (another compromise capital) - then Australia might be more cohesive.
Instead, the country has a few rival capitals and vital centres of power: Melbourne (sporting and intellectual), Sydney (cultural, hedonistic, media and, arguably, business) and Perth (resources).
Some might think this complete tosh. Others might agree with Christian Kerr, a political reporter with The Australian: "The city that was supposed to be a focus for the nation has no focus at itself.
"Canberra does not represent the nation. It is a place most Australians neither know about nor care about. And with good reason, too."
ECONOMIC INDICATORS OF THE WEEK: The head of Macquarie Group, the fabled "millionaire's factory", took an almost 99% pay cut because of a 52% slump in profits. Unemployment went down rather than up. 5.4% in April from 5.7% in March. Economists had predicted a 6-year high of 5.9%.
I'm 
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