Dialogue: Why we need hapless heroes

It was with pure, galloping horror that I watched the normally sane citizenry of this nation do its collective nut as the Queen Mother achieved what is apparently considered a major milestone - doing exactly nothing at the expense of generations of half-witted taxpayers for precisely 100 years.

I pronounce myself stumped about such blind enthusiasm for this woman's contribution. It is always nice to have heroes, icons and so on, but perhaps it is time to rally from the coma in this instance.

Actually, the Queen Mother is my worst nightmare. This is especially true at the present point in history, this being a point at which I find myself feeling a little bit sensitive about rich, grasping old people.

Sometimes, just very quietly, I think of the Queen Mother as Satan's own superannuitant. I really do. There she stands, a still-healthy pensioner who is personally wealthy, has managed to spend 100 years collecting non-means-tested benefits and clearly has no immediate plans to do her nation a fiscally responsible favour by dropping dead.

There were times last week when I could hardly bear it for another second. It was like she was personally mocking me. It still is.

I stare at the Queen Mother's photo, knowing that simply by existing, the woman is offering encouragement to Greypower. It's people like her that encourage that wretched outfit to stay on the horse.

But is she really so extraordinary? Is she really one of the all-time humanitarians? Hard evidence seems thin.

I know she was nice to her husband, but then who the hell wouldn't be? He had 10 houses and an open cheque book. Even I would have made an effort in his case.

Nonetheless, New Zealanders seem convinced that there is a touch of the saintly in the Queen Mother's eyes. People deliver themselves of quite spectacular dewy-eyed drivel while warming to this theme.

I had occasion to bear unfortunate witness to this grisly phenomenon one evening last week. I was in a group of middle New Zealanders. Actually, they were remarkably urbane - or at least were until they launched into their defence of the Queen Mother.

It was somewhere around here that something very weird went down. All potential for sophisticated dialogue was chased from the room by that odd aspect of the middle-New Zealand psyche where righteousness meets sycophancy.

Everyone who spoke about the Queen Mother offered exactly the sort of uncomplicated, cuddly analysis that continues to cause the rest of the world to consider all New Zealanders morons.

Still, it was something to hear. "She is just really nice," observed one punter, confidently. "You can tell by looking at her pictures."

"She is really helpful," said another. He also had apparently gleaned this fact by staring at photos of the Queen Mother.

"She was nice about Diana," observed another. As this speaker had, like the rest of us, never heard the Queen Mother say anything, we can only conclude that the speaker also drew her conclusion from the Queen Mother's portraits.

And on it went, banality following inanity until I was compelled to leave, screaming.

So, alas, I still do not understand why the Queen Mother continues to strike a chord here. Perhaps it is yet another generation thing.

Perhaps in the old days - whenever they were - you simply chose an icon and stuck with her. And although it's true the Queen Mother hasn't done much, perhaps that's the point. Perhaps the idea was to go for an icon who was least likely to can off the pedestal. By definition, you had to choose someone who was fairly unimaginative.

They kicked a goal here with the Queen Mum.

I prefer fallen heroes, myself.

"Making heroes out of men who are the antithesis of our official heroes," Joan Didion called it.

It explains a lot. It explains why, for instance, Mark Todd strikes me as interesting for the first time in his life. Which is mostly a good thing. His new-found air of complexity should help keep more of us awake during dressage.

It'll give us something to think about - always useful when there's nothing to see.

I guess the Olympic Committee knows there are plenty of people like me.