One interesting thing about Darwin is how often this city in the so-called Top End of north tropical Australia has been destroyed. Indeed there are those who contend that this is the only interesting thing about Darwin.

Australian celebrity Dame Edna Everage once famously remarked that the place was "a virus, not a city," and that "there was no cure." A trifle harsh in this column's opinion, given the rough treatment the community has endured. In 1897 Darwin was pulverized by a cyclone; in 1935 it was flattened by a second cyclone; and in 1942 the Japanese Air Force bombed it into oblivion.

Several times.