Wendyl Nissen: Mum's celeb crown a good fit

I loved watching The King's Speech, but I am no royalist. When I view the royal family from my spot down here at the bottom of the Earth I view them with no more interest than I do other celebrities who hit the spotlight.

It's impossible for me to feel a connection with a family whose very existence depends on an outdated model of monarchy which has little relevance in today's world. I am, however, always interested in what they are wearing, just as I am in Lady Gaga's latest outfit.

I will never forget, as a pregnant and tired magazine editor, the time I worked with my editorial team through the night to cover Princess Diana's funeral and get a special edition out the next day. As we worked we had the television on to watch the coverage and I noticed one of my staff break down in tears.

"You've got to be kidding," I said, lacking empathy as I did in those days.

She looked at me with real hurt in her eyes.

"I can't help it," she cried.

I was dealing at that time with daily letters and phone calls from New Zealanders blaming me, my magazine and the rest of the media for Diana's death and I was truly astonished.

"Thank you for your thoughts, I will note them down and take them into account," I would reply before hanging up and thinking, "Are you crazy? She's just another celebrity."

As the dust settled shortly after Diana's death it was widely agreed that she worked very hard to become a celebrity. Her life as a princess in the castle had been lonely, unrewarding and lacking attention.

So, like all celebrities, she set out to get some attention, granting secret interviews with chosen journalists who provided front-page headlines. She set out to be famous, thumbing her beautiful nose at the rules of the family into which she had married.

With time and careful manipulation of the media, her long-lasting image in the pages of the history books was carefully shaped into that of a saint, with pictures of her inspecting landmines and cuddling frail children reprinted over and over again until the photos began to tear at the edges.

Her children, William and Harry, were well protected from the media as they grew up, with annual shots of them in the Scottish Highlands with their father in a kilt. The looks on their faces said it all.

"I hate this."

And then William stepped up. When he placed his mother's ring on his fiancee's finger he announced to the world that he was his mother reincarnated. While his father plods about in his eco-garden and defends the Dalai Lama, William is all about his mother's twin towers: sainthood and celebrity.

Diana was without doubt the world's greatest celebrity, the "biggest star of the modern world", to quote Piers Morgan. She sold billions of newspapers and magazines, creating a frenzy of interest wherever she went.

She courted some of the world's most-popular figures, wore the most exclusive designer gowns and adopted the most-visible celebrity adornment - that of the martyr hunted and pursued by the very media she had so recently fed and pampered.

It had grown from a cute little lion cub which was fun to play with into a wild beast which would not be tamed. William's recent visit to our shores has demonstrated that the celebrity crown is comfortably installed, plugged into mains power and pumping out enough watts to light up the dark side of the moon.

His ever-spreading bald patch provided a comfy landing patch for his mother's celebrity tiara, and the residents of Canterbury gratefully sunned themselves in the star-studded rays he projected over them.

Yet William is essentially a helicopter pilot who stands for, well, nothing. Is he left or right-leaning? What's his take on Libya? What are his thoughts on the world's starving children?

We know that he likes rugby, has invited David and Posh Beckham to his wedding and that he and his bride will ride in the same royal carriage as did his parents on their wedding day.

"What does it say about the maturity of our nation when the only thing which lifts our spirits is a visit by a 28-year-old boy?" said my republican father. "Surely we are made of sterner stuff."

We are and we know that from the way we have responded to the catastrophe in Christchurch.