Parade would never have wished misfortune on his own national side, but with the Australians now out, Parade feels he can cheer for our Kiwi cousins without overwhelming guilt.

Parade has been lucky enough to visit the Land of the Long White Cloud a few times and he has found New Zealanders, almost to a man, unfailingly friendly, polite, cheerful and just damn nice.

There's something about the isolation, the fresh air and all that healthful rugby that seems to create good people - or maybe Parade has just been lucky enough to avoid meeting any of the villains.

One thing that has struck Parade on a number of occasions is how little Australians know about their neighbour despite its proximity.

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Parade was at a trivia night years back (in the days before everyone had a smartphone) where a debate raged for some time about the New Zealand capital.

The answer accepted by the MC (and it was the correct answer) was Wellington, but some of the trivia-goers were convinced it was Auckland and another bloc was confident it was Dunedin and simply could not be dissuaded.

A more recent trivia question in one of the metropolitan newspapers asked for the first female prime minister of New Zealand.

Parade, smiling smugly, went for Labour's Helen Clark - and was flabbergasted to see that it was National's Jenny Shipley (a name that Parade must admit he didn't even recognise).

During one of Parade's visits to Kiwiland a few years ago, there was a show on the television that went through the making of some of the most successful New Zealand songs of all time.

Parade settled back to watch, thinking he'd know them all, and was more than a little embarrassed to find that he recognised about one-third of them.

Slice Of Heaven, from the Footrot Flats movie, got a guernsey on that list - and that's not just a great New Zealand song, it's a great song.