Today is a public holiday in Australia to celebrate our dated our social outlook is – yes, it’s the Queens Birthday. Our head of state – a legacy of our colonial past which we have not yet been able to jettison. The vast majority of Australians want to live in a Republic with our own chosen head of state but it seems we are waiting for the old lady in Britain to leave the stage before we will commit to that preference. I don’t usually recognise this holiday but since last Friday I have been struck down with a bad flu and so I decided to suspend writing until later in the week. I have some interesting things coming up though.