Jim Hopkins: Shield against our gloom and despair

There's no point pretending any more. New Zealand's happy. We are. We're happy. Game over. Southland's won the shield and all's well with the world.

Heaven alone knows how this has happened. It's completely out of character. We shouldn't be happy. We're not usually happy. We don't like being happy. Misery is our default position, our favoured mire.

Naturally, journalists are doing their level best to get us back in it. As you'd expect. Ladling out daily dollops of gloom and despond has worked for years.

But not any more. Things are so bad in the "things are so bad" industry that the wee pets have even stopped banging on about that great cataclysm of the ages, global warming.

And rightly so. The moment we realised saving the planet meant we had to have an ETS that was going to cost us heaps of real money in addition to all those other taxes we were already paying anyway, we lost interest.

The gummint's still pretending to be worried, of course. They must. That's the price you pay for going to the UN and getting housing allowances larger than the GDP of Vanuatu.

But they know we've gone cool on it. They know what we think about their onerous ETS thingee.

We think the ETS should be like Christmas decorations. Something you put up for a while to keep the kids happy, but take down and stow away in a cardboard box under the stairs as soon as the Copenhagen season's over.

Which is very likely what the gummint plans to do. They just can't say so, that's all. They have to look like they're taking it seriously, as you did in the fifth form when the Head told you off for putting anacondas in Alvis Paisley's sandshoes.

Sorry, Alvis.

But we're not the gummint. We don't have to take anything seriously. So we don't. We're happy. We don't care. For some strange, collective, subterranean reason, we've chosen not to worry, no matter how often and how loudly the scribes yell "Fire" in the theatre of our anxieties.

Well, let 'em! It's not working. No matter how strident these poor hoarse men of the apocalypse become, we just smile a goofy smile and shrug a silly shrug and ask the great New Zillun question; "So?"

Everything's a ricochet, a flesh wound, a glancing blow. It might plunge us into a slough of indifference but that's as bad as it gets. We don't care.

At least, not about the things we're supposed to care about. Like global warming - or teachers getting tetchy about going back to basics.

Their spokespersons tried to make us all angsty and fretful about that very thing last week. Wailing and whinging about how the gummint's intention to emphasise readin', ritin' and 'rithmetic would mean the end for science and art in school.

No it won't, you frauds. It just means you'll have to install a few skills the same way people building cars have to install the odd steering wheel. Harden up, silly billies.

If you're serious, if you really do want some science squeezed in between all the social hygiene and cultural sensitivity and human rights awareness, then let the juniors read books that say, "Look, Janet, look. The world is round."

"Look, John, look. The sea is blue."

"Look, Janet, look. The polar bears are sunbathing."

And if you want more art, try something McCahonesque (a la I AM) for the seniors - just correct the spelling and put in the punctuation. That's all we ask. It aint rokket syence, teech!

Though fixing ACC will certainly require skills as esoteric. Quite how the corporation came to be in the mess it's in - assuming, of course, that it really is in any kind of mess at all - remains an abstrusity beyond the fathomation of simple souls like us.

So we don't care. We sort of figure it may be broke - though perhaps not quite as broke as Nick Smith says - and therefore it will need some fixing - preferably not too costly - but, unexpectedly, inexplicably, even this hugely expensive schemozzle hasn't sent us scuttling back to the dungeons of doom.

We're bothered, yes. A bit dubious about the financial gobbledegook, for sure. (Then again, anything financial is gobbledegook, n'est pas?) And we're troubled about the costs.

But the anxiety's pastel. It's muted. There's none of that stick your arm down your throat and turn yourself inside out kind of anger we've become accustomed to.

For years, poor old Outer Roa's been like that skinny boy in the Diane Arbus photo, face contorted with fear or fury, fists clenched in rage. We simply haven't been happy.

But we are now. We're happy. Our clamorous voices come through a glass, dimly. There's no knowing why. They just do.

Maybe we stopped listening.

Maybe we got tired of worrying. Maybe the recession is a faint echo of the Blitz. Maybe it's created its own, "Chin up, cheer up, we're in this together, do your worst, Adolf" mindset.

Maybe it doesn't matter. What matters is we're happy. That's it. End of story. The shield's won Southland and all's well with the world. Enjoy it.