We Are Not Amused

If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to hog the headlines more than rugby, it a visit by members of the Royal Family. In fact, since The Royal Couple (TRC) touched down a few days ago, there hasn’t been a single mention of The ABs. At least I don’t think so. Err, well I assume not because since TRC arrived in New Zealand I’ve been giving the paper and its media offshoot a wide berth.

Actually that’s not entirely true. I did, whilst munching on my lunch on Monday, accidentally spot an article that picqued my curiosity;

“Where to go to avoid the royal hoopla!“, shouted the headline, it’s bold lettering almost jumping off the page. Not this was interesting, if not a little ironic considering that New Zealand is (generally) a great place to avoid any such royal shenanigans. Was it suggesting anywhere convenient? Alas no. Only places where the royal circus wasn’t going to be visiting. I went back to my lunch and munched on a carrot.

For the past few days, TRC have been in our fair city of Auckland and boy has it been wet! Not typical British-stiff-upper-lip wet but proper monsoon-soaked-down-to-your-undies-if-you-dare-step-out-for-even-a-second wet. Despite that, it didn’t seem to phase TRC and as they got about getting about their business. Fair play. 

To make sure their visit went without any incidents, one half of the city centre was closed off to traffic which, given Aucklands dire traffic problems, was probably a wise move. Especially when you consider just how rubbish the drivers are - I may have mentioned this previously - and the cities sudden infatuation with green electric scooters. How bad would it look on news channels across the globe if a member of the Royal Family was filmed going arse-over-tit as a lime green scooter whizzes past? Indeed.

But if the weather misbehaving wasn’t enough, New Zealand had another trick up its sleeve. To round off their New Zealand experience Mother Nature served up a good old slice of drama in the form of an earthquake. This, a magnitude-6.2 shake wasn’t huge by New Zealand standards, but it was enough to give Parliament enough pause to....well....pause and everyone else a good rattle. 

The press, maybe short of a new angle for TRC, were happy to report that they weren’t harmed by the quake and that they battled on and kept to their schedule. Good for them! It is perhaps less impressive when geographic location had more to do with it than the aforementioned British stiff upper lip. But good effort anyway.

This evening, they’re visiting the museum in the park behind our house. It’s not that I’m paying any attention to their itinerary, or that I’m invited them round for tea and biscuits later, but it’s hard not to know with all these helicopters buzzing around. I can hardly hear myself type.

Despite my protestations above, it’s generally a good thing for New Zealand to have such high profile visitors - it certainly puts the country on the map - and if nothing else it deflects the country’s obsession with everything rugby. For a short while anyway.

In a few days everything will be back to normal. The world’s press will look for another circus - there are plenty of those at the moment - and we can go back to being the country at the edge of the world that does things in its own quiet, yet magnificent way.