A country that plays to its strengths is a successful country.
Australia, for instance, is very well aware that its biggest strength lies in the fabulous hardcore, hard-drinking, hard-rock bands of the 1970s, the likes of AC/DC, Australian Crawl, Rose Tattoo and, of course, the Angels.
That is why the theme music for Recruits, a terrific reality series about attractive young blond Australians joining the police force and starting their careers on the mean streets of Sydney, works so, so well.
And, gee, the opening bars of the Angels' hit song, Take a Long Line, juxtaposed with a bunch of hard-out Aussies with blue uniforms and hot police cars, is dead compelling.
This is hard-rock cops; mean, muscular and ready to hit the streets.
Recruits, from Channel 10 in Australia, gives viewers unprecedented access to the New South Wales police academy, and police on the beat.
And it provides what Prime television describes as the journey of these decent young people "from fresh-faced, naive civilian, to hardened, skilled and assertive constable on the street".
As one of the cops, who has clearly completed the journey, says of some of those he deals with on those streets: "they just have a presence about them, and it radiates filth".
I have to admit I find these cop shows a wee bit compelling, despite myself.
Australian police, of course, get to wear pretty cool leather jackets, which for some reason have never been properly introduced in New Zealand.
They also ride horses more than we do, and get to wear skin-tight horse-riding trousers, and knee-high leather boots.
Sure, they have royal commissions from time to time that uncover the most spectacular corruption, but let's not split hairs.
They look far cooler than our lot.
In Recruits, an attractive young blonde lady slips into the leather jacket and hits the mean streets of seaside suburb Maroubra, just down the road from Bondi.
We watch as she and her police pals deal with an exceedingly unpleasant domestic, involving the sort of woman one would deeply regret marrying.
Handsome young blond surfie Kyle wants a job that is "exciting and terrifying", and he, too, may get his wish.
Both begin what is an eight-month course we are promised is very tough; a course one third of the recruits will fail.
Series two of Recruits begins on Wednesday next week at 8.05pm on Prime, and comes complete with those first domestics, first arrests, first alcohol-fuelled violent outbursts and first fatalities.
Highly recommended for those of you who like Australian reality police recruitment shows.
