Virtue of the vicious

Dr Samuel Johnson, always a handy man with a quote, said "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel". (He also said "Anyone who thinks of going to bed before midnight is a scoundrel" - clearly he liked calling people scoundrels). George Bernard Shaw said "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." And intellectually I can certainly see what these erudite chaps were getting at. I am aware, basically, that patriotism is a bit silly, if not outright dangerous if taken to extremes.

However, this doesn't stop me from loving New Zealand. I find it excellent in almost all possible ways. See this?


Excellent, I know.

Occasionally I will be trawling a comments section on a Stuff article or something and will come across complaints that such-and-such is "ruining this country" or, even more drastically, such-and-such has already "ruined" New Zealand. I am genuinely puzzled by such comments. Is there really some precipitous decline in the standards of New Zealand everything, hitherto unnoticed by me? Does it actually suck to live here, and I'm just in some kind of bubble? I mean, really? I can't be sure, but I choose to believe that such commenters don't know what the hell they are talking about.

This could be blind patriotism.

Being a New Zealander of my age, I have many friends and acquaintances who have travelled overseas for long periods to get up to various things (in fact, I don't have many who haven't). I can totally understand the want or need to go and see or do things that we just don't have here (Castles. Pyramids. Elephant safaris. Irish people.) even for extended periods of time, and then come back. I might have done such things myself, were I not so, you know, useless.

But when people - some quite good friends of mine - have at times taken an attitude that is more like "there's nothing here for me" or "I can't wait to get out of here", which of course they are perfectly entitled to do, I have sometimes caught myself in the process of almost becoming personally offended - like this is some kind of slur on New Zealand's honour. Whaddaya mean? What's wrong with New Zealand? Screw you, New Zealand doesn't want you anyway! You must suck. I have, at times, had really quite strong feelings in this sort of department.

This could be blind patriotism.

On Friday, New Zealand and Australia play the fifth match of the Chappell-Hadlee ODI series. The rebuilding, inexperienced and vastly underdog New Zealand team arrived to newspaper headlines in Australia reading "Even this lot think they can beat us". New Zealand won the first game, and during the course of it the Australian wicketkeeper knocked the bails off with his gloves and claimed the batsman was out bowled. In the post match press conference, Daniel Vettori mildly stated he was disappointed with this (clearly captured on video) incident. Cricket's most arrogant captain, Ricky Ponting, promptly threw his toys and demanded to know how DARE Vettori accuse his player of "cheating". The player in question, Brad Haddin, labelled Vettori's expression of disappointment "low". Michael Clarke of Australia was interviewed shortly afterwards and said a series loss to New Zealand was "unthinkable". New Zealand won the second game. Australian media commentators opined extensively on how low Australian cricket had sunk, that they had lost 2 games in a row to a "second-rate" New Zealand side. Australia made some team changes and won the next two games. The fifth and final match is therefore the series decider. New Zealand have never won a one day series in Australia.

I would like us to win the game on Friday.

This is just sensible.