Tall poppy syndrome

Who uses it: Australians
What it means: The tendency to belittle or criticize the more successful; the term comes from an episode in Livy's History of Rome, when the tyrant Tarquin Superbus whacked the heads off a row of poppies as a way of advising his son to assert his authority by killing off his city's most prominent citizens.
How you can use it: To explain your own unpopularity.

Tall poppy syndrome is hardly unique to Australia, but it is so prevalent there that they've given it a name and discuss it frequently. Apologists say that it's not excellence they object to, it's taking oneself too seriously or acting stuck-up. Personally, I find arrogance attractive -- in people who have earned the right to be arrogant.

My iPod shuffle is supposed to be random, but it does sometimes seem like an independent intelligence that decides what I ought to be listening to. On this morning's walk, it gave me a whole set -- six songs -- of Van Morrison and ABBA. What the hell...? I only have one ABBA album in my collection (okay, it's a double album), so what did I do to deserve that?