Born in 2004

If you were born in 2004, the Athens Olympics in August gave Australia another summer of national sporting pride — Ian Thorpe in the pool, Cathy Freeman on the track one last time, the women's rowing and cycling teams, a total of 49 medals. The cricket team was still the best in the world. The housing market in Sydney and Melbourne was now a genuine obsession and a genuine problem — first home buyers priced out, prices rising faster than incomes, the conversation at every barbecue turning to property.

Mark Latham had won the Labor leadership and was conducting an energetic but erratic campaign against Howard, ultimately losing the October election. John Howard was approaching his tenth year in office. The cultural life was its Australian self: *The Castle* was on television again, as it always would be, and the quotations had entered the language permanently.

*Neighbours* was still going. Australian Idol had Guy Sebastian writing songs for people. The music scene was producing Missy Higgins and The Vines and Jet — guitar-rock that was genuinely good and internationally successful.

The beach was still there. The flat white was still essential. The sausage sizzle outside the polling booth on election day was still the most reliably Australian thing in the country.