This column would take on an air of unreality if it did not say something sooner or later about the momentous coup d’état that occurred on 14 September. After all, my readers have journeyed with me through the halcyon days of John Howard, marvelled at the Shakespearian eloquence of Kevin Rudd (‘fair shake of the sauce bottle cobber, give me some programmatic specificity’), noted Julia Gillard’s curious transactions in the counting house at Slater and Gordon (‘I was young and naïve at the time’) and grappled with her strange view of the world (‘we are us’).