Cheating Bastards

I've been quite enjoying all the RWC® matches, even the smaller (by reputation and skill levels) teams have put up a good fight, and I've seen plenty of good sport and good sportsmanship.

With one exception.

I'm going to the World Cup

This has been a very long and strange week.

Activities

We poor sods who teach at Nuova Lazio High have been asked to come up with some ideas for the last week of school for our year 9s and 10s.  The traditional tramp to Eastbourne or trip to the swimming pool is seen now as too boring.
Here are some suggestions.

Find the Landmine.

A simple activity, suitable for the thickest, but does require some preparation.

1. Select a suitable paddock, preferably one at least 400 metres away from any habitation.
2. Plant using standard British Army AP3 minefield plan.
3. Carefully note the position of each mine on a map for future clearance (we must be responsible users)
4. Place a large trestle table at one end of the paddock, and place plates of cheerios and sausage rolls on it.
5. Attach a large picture of Princess Diana to the front of the table
6. Open the gate and let the hungry kids through.
7. Repeat until kids and/or mines used up.
8. Remove and make safe any mines left
9. Store mines safely for use next year.
10. Plough field to hide mess and distribute remains as fertilizer
11. A good crop of grass is guaranteed for next year, so most farmers will oblige with the loan of a paddock if asked nicely.

Hunt the Marijuana

A more complex activity, suitable for the stoners.  No preparation required.

1. Position the selected kids at the bottom of Nuova Lazio Hill.
2. Give each participant a simple compass, a map of Berlin, a disposable butane lighter and a large folding knife.
3. Tell them that somewhere in the hills is a large plantation of marijuana, whose owners have been arrested and imprisoned.
4. Tell them the first person to find this plantation will own it.
5. Release the kids.
6. Go and have a nice cup of coffee
7. When you hear the first sounds/screams of fighting use your binoculars to locate the plantation
8. As the screams die down and the first tendrils of smoke climb into the sky, call the cops, remove all evidence and depart the scene.

PS The map of Berlin can be substitued by a map of anywhere really.  Do you think that the stoners can concentrate long enough to actually read a map?

More activities will posted during the rest of this week.

Sport

Lots of blogs are mentioning sport recently, ManOfErrors is getting a lot of comments, with memories of past glories of caliper-laden soccer afficianados.
Now I will recognise that NZ is a sport mad country, where everyone is encouraged to go out and get active.
Why?
We have Taffy at Nuova Lazio High, who is mad keen on mountain biking (MB). He has helped to develop a (reportedly) magnificent MB track in the glorious hills surrounding the balmy valley of Nuova Lazio. At least that is what I think he said at last appell, sometimes it's difficult to work out what he is saying. I think he's fallen of his MB once to often, and is suffering from serious brain damage, like most sportsmen.

I hear reports on the wireless radio, and the wireless television of chaps doing wonderful things on emerald green paddocks;of coughing up the pill, of ball in hand (I thought they always had to do that in Rugby Union Football(RUF); of the secret black arts of the scrum(mage); of brave chaps running and playing with one testicle hanging out (have these chaps not heard of personal protectors?

what I believe our American friends would call a jockstrap, or at least good manners);many cries of "that's gotta hurt", of course it has to bloody hurt, they've just been hit/trampled/punched/choked/thrown/hit again/kicked/jumped on/butted/kneed/bitten/(and I strongly suspect in one instance French Kissed).


Reports on a strange variation of RUF called soccer, where 11 chaps kick a ball up and down another emerald green field (this time), where they are not seemingly allowed to handle the ball at all (unless it is a mysterious entity called the "Hand of God Maradonna")
Reports from an occupation called netball, where young ladies (scantily dressed and of a delicate mien)stand about, occasionally trot, and throw a ball to each other. This one is almost civilised.



Reports of beach volleyball....no I cannot go on, it is simply too much for a man of my advancing years and high blood pressure, but I have recorded some of the girls' games on the Digital Versatile Disc Recording Apparatus.
Sport is supposed to be relaxing.
At its most energetic it consists of 11 chaps, properly attired in gleaming white, wasting their time on a beautifully mown lawn of epic proportions, while we, the real sportsmen sit in deck-chairs under a brilliant sun centered in an azure dome and sip gin and tonics, and rumble quietly to each other about things of the day.
No sweat.
No blood.
And definitely no bloody women.



Ah well, a large whisky calls, while I watch our gallant 15 thrash the living daylights out of those ugly Welsh. Watched on that marvellous invention called Satellite Television, linked to my wireless television. This way I did not have to go to my well deserved bed too late.