'Recent events might suggest that Australia has taken a turn for the worse, but Ben Pobjie lets us know that we have never really been up to much. His stint as TV columnist for this paper has given him the skills to approach the national story as if it were a parade of reality TV contestants, so his take is not so much black armband as red nose and spinning light-up bow tie: more than irreverent, it's mean and derisive. ...'