Reprinted from The Age, Letters, Saturday 28/5/05, written in response to this piece. Next to it is a brilliant Leunig illustration.

Jim Schembri's view of Adelaide (Metro, 27/5) made me laugh. True, we used to be like that, but since Adelaide's Parliament House was turned into a bordello for defence contractors, life has been much simpler. After Dick Cheney set up Halliburton's Global Infrastructure Headquarters out in the suburbs and started to co-ordinate "services" at all levels of government, everybody very quickly learned to enjoy what they were meant to be doing. Yank-accented bellows of "take it, baby" echoing along our corridors of power were answered by South Australian moans of "Yes, yes, yes!"

Everybody's happy, what's the problem? Adelaide's new street name of "The Defence Capital of Australia" is very sexy to the Pentagon's prime commercial players - much more appealing than "Chantelle". At least the churches are free again, so that once we start building the warships we can pray for our souls.
Richard Tonkin, Brompton, Adelaide