Paul Holmes: Basking in Rugby World Cup bonhomie

Good humour, generosity and pride in our Kiwiness gripped the country. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

Yes, it was a wonderful win. And what a party it all was, this Rugby World Cup. What an outpouring of good humour and generosity between our people and between us and the rest of the world. It was a blast and God was on our side on Final night. Nevertheless, not wanting to be a Cassandra, the truth was that it was a near run thing. Thank the Lord for the much overlooked Stephen Donald. I felt sorry for Piri having the kicking taken off him but McCaw had to do something. Piri wasn't on song and soon we knew why.

Anyway, it was great and the country got the party it needed and deserved and we were able to feel really good about being Kiwis again. But I do worry about hysteria and there's a bit of it out there this week.

The little girl in Wellington who began to hyperventilate because Richie shook her hand was too much to bear. But I shouldn't moan. She was a little girl who'd met her hero and the country was always going to go off after we'd won the Cup.

Didn't you feel great for Graham Henry. I did, as I watched him come on to the field in those dizzying seconds of victory. I watched him. I thought about Cardiff and its painful aftermath for the coach. How exquisite is vindication. How exquisite it must have been for him proving that he was the right man for the job after all. But as the world proclaimed him Caesar, I couldn't help but recall what they were saying about him four years ago and reflecting on impermanence.

So what are we going to do with all the flags? And did this World Cup prove to us once and for all that the real flag in the hearts of New Zealanders is black with a silver fern on it? I've no doubt that this is now in our minds the legitimate flag. It's perfect. It's simple. It's as distinctively New Zealand as the red maple leaf is of Canada. It's a no-brainer. Bugger the Union Jack. Over it. Leave it to Mike Tindall and his band of failed marauders and late night maulers.

Well, that was the World Cup. Now we move to the next big excitement. The election. A colleague of mine working on the Backbenchers programme went among the crowds cheering the All Blacks in the Wellington parade on Wednesday.

They were asking people whether they were looking forward to the election. My friend was amazed at the response. A good number of people didn't know there was an election looming. She said when you took their minds off the All Blacks and mentioned the election, faces fell. The chances of the fervour on display for the World Cup being reignited for our national elections seems remote.

I felt a bit sorry for John Key at the moment of his mistimed and unfortunately clumsy handshake with Richie McCaw, when he managed to grab only two of Richie's fingers because another bloke had got there first.

What is it about handshakes? I detest a limp handshake. A limp handshake gives me the creeps. Mind you, a bone crusher just makes me want to thump the guy. The answer, as the song said, is somewhere in between. But what is it about a clumsy or badly executed handshake that really is so disastrous? And, I've always wondered, by the by, should you shake a woman's hand more softly than you do a man's?

I've been absorbed all week by a pre-release copy sent to me by the publishers of the enthralling, soon to be best seller, I'm sure, Death in Perugia. It describes itself as "The definitive account of the Meredith Kercher case from her murder to the acquittal of Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox." It's written by the London Sunday Times Italian correspondent, John Follain, who was there on the scene from day one. Knox and Sollecito were recently released from prison after being acquitted by the Italian Court of Appeal. Amanda rushed home to Seattle before anyone could have second thoughts.

What a tale. It was the most savage rape and murder. Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox rented rooms in a cottage right next to each other. The prosecution painted Amanda as angelic on the outside - and indeed, she's quite beautiful - and a diabolical cold blooded killer on the inside. They claimed that together, with her meek and nerdy boyfriend, they held Meredith down as she struggled against the violence of a boozed-up, drugged-up couple with sex and murder coursing through their veins. Amanda was a narcissist, they said. The knife cut in Meredith's neck was the deepest the senior police officer had ever seen.

Follain takes a very middle road. And at the end of the book, we still don't know. But the crime seems too savage for the girl he describes. In any case, no one could ever put her definitely at the house at the time of the killing.

But the behaviour her friends came to notice in her during the short time they knew her in Italy was quite bizarre. She seemed to have no sense of appropriateness. And after the murder her story changed time and again. And, wait for it, she was seen buying bleach the morning of the day after the murder. And at the police station that night, she seemed quite unconcerned about Meredith's death, kissing and cuddling the boyfriend instead. Well, Lindy Chamberlain was inappropriate enough for people to think she could murder but as time revealed, she was no killer.

Oh yes. It's quite a story, this one.