Vaguely ridiculous to the fore in tour

When the Duchess and I togged up for a recent Hawaiian night, she found herself short of both muu-muu and ukulele. She made do with a luminous green wig, as any sane person would.

Elsewhere in New Zealand, another Duchess was in fancy dress. Camilla of Cornwall fronted the colonists in a construction engineered by royal hatmonger Philip Treacy.

It was the size of a small building, and contained sufficient room for a hairdo, a spare cream bun, and a family of canaries.

A sensitive person, looking at the two duchesses' headwear, would deduce that while one was going to a party, the other was crying for help - perhaps a couple of nights respite in the nearest asylum. This would provide relief from the madness of the dorkish royal itinerary.

Consider Charles and Camilla's Nelson visit. The morning saw Charles peering down a microscope at sea-lab algae, while the Duchess absorbed an insult - a test tube scampi had been christened Camilla.

They were gifted peanut butter at the Nelson market. Next, the Wearable Art Museum and its ''bizarre bra'' collection, where the Duchess was introduced to a person in a ''frockatoo''.

They got off lightly at the crowd walk - Charles was licked by someone's dog but at least it was a corgi. I presume they also laid wreaths, met the mayor, and gave out craft badges to Girl Guides.

The facile, dreary content of such itineraries boggles. I wonder what happens at day's end, when poor Charles and Camilla finally close the door and sit down for a cuppa.

''Another day, another cringe,'' groans Charles.

''Did you cop that scout master's breath?''

''Darling, I was engulfed,'' says Camilla, who is wriggling in front of the mirror.

''This bizarre bra they gave me - have I got it on back the front?'' The king-in-waiting and his consort are sitting ducks for royal tour ridicule.

It's partly because they're set up to play elderly stuffed shirts - and partly because they are such naturals in the role.

The media no longer resists the chance to poke fun. The more juvenile royals stagger through such tours unscathed but they're protected by youth.

They, too, will grow old and bald, as they measure out their lives in coffee spoons. They, too, will come to seem vaguely ridiculous.

The Queen has joked that tours are necessary because royalty ''has to be seen to be believed''. It's a great double-edged line, and ''seen to be believed'' sums up how out of touch this last tour was with everyday New Zealand.

Royal tours are ongoing PR props for our system of constitutional monarchy. But I doubt the Charles and Camilla show is a positive. Charles has waited out the years for the lead role in a system which is neither truly constitutional, nor truly monarchic.

It's a grab bag of conventions whose lack of clarity can be dangerous. And to work well it relies on respect and affection for the monarch.

The system is a long way from foolproof. It failed the fool test at its biggest post-war challenge - when the Queen's Australian viceroy Sir John Kerr (the fool) cast aside the convention of political neutrality, and sacked the Whitlam Labour government.

It was a mess-up by a deeply flawed man. And where was the monarch through this? She was sidelined - she was neither warned nor consulted, and she heard about it over breakfast. (It's fair to presume she was angry).

The Queen's Man had thought it best the monarchy wasn't involved when its ''reserve powers'' were so historically invoked. Kerr's excuse had a certain Mad Hatter's logic.

Yet, while most believe constitutional monarchy works well for New Zealand, I suspect we also worry that at its royal and viceroy end, it has an Alice-in-Wonderland fragility. Out in the wings sits an inherent daftness.

This worries me most when we are up close to Charles and his medalled suits, and Camilla with her tea party hats.

''Curiouser and curiouser,'' as Alice said.

John Lapsley lives in Arrowtown.

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