Dodging a bullet...

Or a soft squidgy bit of spherical rubber in this case - I'm talking about Dodgeball of course. One of the guys in the office has suggested we start a "social Dodgeball team", he says he has a dream and that dream is to enter, nay dominate the local league in London Bridge.

Now when I was a lad oh so long ago, we played something similar.  There were no points, no teams, in fact there were no real rules to speak of.  It was essentially like "tag" or "it" but a ball, usually of the tennis variety though occasionally something harder, was used instead.  Obviously you threw it as hard as you could hence the name: "Sting"ball.

Anyway this got me thinking about the other playground games we used to play as kids and I realised an awful lot of them involved pain in some way.  Games of slapsies until our hands were raw, bouts of knuckles until they bled and so on.  One of our favourites was a variation of stingball, except we all lined up against the wall and the person who had lost the previous round had to elimiate us by booting a footbal at us as hard as possible, we were allowed to duck and dodge so long as you didnt step away from the wall and if you caught a ball in the face it was pretty painful, but we would still came back for more the very next break.  Perhaps the very worst game we played at primary school was the Tunnel of Beats.  How awful does that sound? I cant remember the rules and to be honest I suspect they were farely sketchy in the first place, but I do recall that it involved two lines of children through which you would have to run whilst they laid into you on your way past, quite literally a tunnel of beats.  It's hard to imagine that in these days of anti-antisocial behaviour things like that would be allowed, but I am sure children will find something else to do - indeed it would appear as though kids seem to enjoy the dangerous element of games that involve pain in some way, certainly more than I do now at any rate.

I read recently that schools are banning all sorts of traditional playground games for various ridiculous reasons.  Have a read here, where one school has banned conkers as they are considered to be an offensive weapon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1060708.stm

Come to think of it, you never see anybody picking up conkers anymore.  When I was at school we used to collect bags and bags of them.  We used all sorts of ridiculous methods to try and make them harder; pickling in vinegar, baking, varnishing.  None of them worked particularly well.  The best conker i ever saw turned out not to be a conker at all but a piece of carved mahogany.  Genius.

Right I'm off to start a conker tournament in the office, I'm working on a particularly strong sixer at the moment and I think it has the makings of a champion nut.

Sieg Miaoow

I just stumbled upon this incredibably oddball website (dont ask me how) depicting various kitty cats that bear a passing resemblance to Adolf Hitler.  Have a look for yourself here.

Some are remarkably similar and even appear to have the same "Adolf" haircut, parting and all.  Being the cynic that I am I suspect foulplay and a can of car spray.  Some people will do anything to make their cat appear, erm... famous?  Certainly couldnt class it as cute could you?  Maybe that is the most bizzarre aspect of all, a mass murdering psychopath fuckhead depicted as a cute fluffball that you just want to cuddle.

I think the world might be about to end, I'm off to get a brolly.
Heil Kitler: