While the world powers-that-be divide to rule and our own leaders trade petulant insults in Parliament, a three-minute advertisement for Danish broadcaster TV2 charmed global audiences by showing we have more in common than not.

The video, All That We Share, showed a great group of Danes in a studio standing in different squares marked out on the floor.

“It’s easy to put people in boxes," a narrator says. "There’s us and there’s them. The high earners and those just getting by. There’s the new Danes and those who have always been here."

The narrator asks: Who in the room was the class clown? Who are stepparents? And who loves to dance?

The people move between the squares as the questions come thick and fast.

There is humour. Who got lucky in the past week?

There are tears. Who has been bullied? Who has been a bully?

The visual map of diversity is brilliant in its simplicity. In the spirit of All That We Share some extra questions came to mind hot on the heels of a short sojourn just spent in the nation’s capital.

Who has children who video every waking hour of your weekend away?

As we pulled out of our driveway on Friday afternoon, rushed talk between my husband and me about where to fuel up the fastest was shut down pronto as our six-year-old curtly told us she was filming an important Canberra travel diary.

“A Canberra travel diary could get you into real political trouble,” I say.

“What!?” she says.

“Never mind, you can just edit us out or start again when we get to the Hume,” I say. 

Just as we approached the highway from Thurgoona Drive, the youngest’s Canberra commentary was this time interrupted by the Maps app.

“Take the first exit on Thurgoona Drive and continue on the Hume for 330 kilometres.”

“NOT AGAIN!” she whines.

Who is a history buff? 

While visiting Versailles – Treasures From The Palace at the National Gallery of Australia, our eldest was shocked by the French royal family’s poor taste.

“I don’t like this elaborate stuff but they didn’t deserve to get their heads chopped off for it,” she says.

“They were put under house arrest,” I say.

“Fair enough,” she says. 

Who loves IKEA and who loathes it?

Every three years when memory of the previous bad IKEA experience has all but faded we head back to the Swedish supplier of all things flat-packed.

Our eldest chose a desk before we traipsed through 188 home and decorating sections. I bagged candles I needed and pretty paper napkins I didn’t. I avoided anything in the shape of a moose, having been caught out before with a useless biscuit cutter and coat rack. When we reached the market hall we found that the desk and drawers we wanted were either out of stock or only available in the wrong colour. All surrounding shelves were piled sky-high with supplies!

Afterwards in the IKEA parents’ room, the youngest calls out from the cubicle: “What’s the red button that spells D-U-R-E-S-S?”

“It’s for people who really need to get out of IKEA quickly,” I say.

Most of us on this planet have felt that at least once in our lifetime.