By night he is a harmless and mild-mannered man, but by day he takes on a new persona.

A hero to many, Pete George patrols the nation’s blogsites, stifling any hint of strongly held opinion by laying down a solid suppressing fire of derailing comments.

His tireless efforts in front of his computer have earned George the sobriquet The Beige Badger, as well as the gratitude of dozens of grey-haired, cardigan-wearing blog readers.

To many people Pete George is a genuine superhero, keeping New Zealand’s blogsites focused on nothing much in particular.

But George plays down any suggestion that he is a hero.

“I’m just trying to stick up for the ordinary grey man,” he said.

“There’s too much noise out there on the internet, and people need to take a deep breath, calm down, and do nothing.

“I’m just out there doing what any man approaching old age and living a life of complacent and unexamined comfort would be doing, had he endless hours to while away reading blogsites.”

George is famous for his ability to snuff out leftist conspiracies.

Only a few days ago he exposed an ugly plot by left-wing bloggers to launch a concerted attack on all fronts on the nation’s farmers.

One of the bloggers behind the plot, Scott Yorke, said George had put an end to his plans in no time.

“We had all agreed during our weekly left-wing conspiracy meeting to launch simultaneous blog attacks on the hard-working and honest farming community. Martyn and I had the whole thing planned.

“But we had barely fired off a couple of blogposts before the Beige Badger flew in and put a stop to everything.

“A thousand curses upon the Beige Badger!” yelled Mr Yorke. “I will have my revenge!”

But like all heroes, Pete George has a weakness. Superman had Kryptonite, and Pete George has The Standard.

One mention of the popular leftist blogsite is enough to send the Dunedin man into an almost incontrollable frenzy, followed usually by a fainting fit.

“That blog,” hisses George. “Please, don’t talk about that blog. Do you know they banned me? Why would they do that? What are they afraid of? Why are the left in this country so afraid of contrary opinions? It’s censorship! CENSORSHIP!”

George begins to rail angrily against Lynn Prentice, and his eyes soon begin to roll. Within a few minutes he has passed out.

But the Beige Badger is not inactive for very long. His comment-posting capacity is legendary, even if most of those comments are instantly forgettable.

Some social media experts speculate that when future generations look back on the blogosphere and the reasons for its demise, they will find millions of Pete George comments and conclude that it died of boredom.

However, the Beige Badger is not put off by such predictions.

“I have a duty to sterilise all online political discourse in this country,” said George.

“When people stop caring, stop believing, and stop trying, the grey men will have won. And what a glorious day that will be.”