h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That was fun. Also persuading other children to jump off something into the laced-together arms of some colleagues below. Who would remove their arms as soon as he was in the air.
At school other people used to play try-and-hit-andrew-with-cricket-and-tennis-balls-thrown-against-the-little-bit-of-wall-at-
the-end-of-the-playground-whilst-he-runs-across-it with me as the target. I couldn't throw to save my life but was never hit, which was handy for demonstrating superiority over the fledgling sports wankers who thought that the purpose of life was to be able to throw a cricket ball from one end of the field to the other.

Another variant is the classic 'bridge game,' which involves making someone walk from one roof to another across a bit of rotten wood. A ha ha ha um.

'Roof jumping' was a way we used to display our masculinity when we were 13. Whoever could jump of the highest roof won. Dangerous, really.

My father told me once that he and his older brother once convinced their younger brother to jump out of the barn loft with an umbrella. "No, really!" they said, "You'll float to the ground, just like in the cartoons!" Heh heh...

My uncle got back at my father later by locking him out of the house in his underwear.

Chucking-rocks-at-the-posh-kids-in-the-posh-boarding-school-at-the-end-of-the-road was good. Especially when they said shit like "We'll go and get J.J., then you'll be in trouble." (He was the local brick-shithouse that would break your ears given half a chance.) "But where is he?" we asked. "He's not here, so get your posh-arse haircuts away before we come over and throw you in the stream." "He's in prep," said the posh kids. "What the hell's that, you posh boarding school twats?" They never explained. Barbara Dickson's kids are now at this school, though, which counts David Frost among its alumni. What is prep? As far as I could ascertain it was a period during which people were made to do their homework, having no home to which they could go to perform it otherwise.

We used to have a similar game called "space invaders" where dozens of kids would shuffle in ranks from one side of the playground to the other, waving their arms and making "D-Der D-Der" noises, while someone kicked a football at them.

It was a strange school full of wierd kids. No wonder I turned out like I did.

How is that exactly? Weird too? As weird as the bloke three terminals down from me wearing fake plastic barbed wire 'round his neck? As weird as a rugby player, torn forever by the dichotomy of machismo and shoving your head between the buttocks of heaviy-built men? As weird as the people that practised goolie-grabbing in the school playground? As weird as the kids that didn't climb trees, jump over streams, ride bicycles through woodland paths et al but instead collected stamps, did jobs for old women and stayed on after school to help the teacher hang up paintings? As weird as the kid that became enraged once and bit me on the wrist, almost reaching the plamar vein?
I suppose space invaders is the UK equivalent of dodgeball. Thank christ we haven't elevated it to an organised status, unless americans only do that in South Park.

Stamp collecting can be dangerous too. I once gummed my eyebrow to my foot. Oh, the agony.

None of my friends ever jumped over streams or rode bikes down woodland paths. I did, they just laughed at me. Now they're all training to be businessmen.

Honesty in the name? In Australia the name of dodgeball was 'brandings' - the object being to scar , ideally for life or the rest of the day (whichever the teenage attention span could manage).

;^)#

Oh yes & the ideal target to 'brand' was one who didn't realise that they were part of the game, & innocently though that they were actually playing some other game.


;^)#

A school friend was temporarily blinded (for a few months) when playing Dodgeball or Brandings... He was indeed branded. I can to this day remember the sound of a tennis ball landing squarely in an eye at upwards of ninety miles an hour.
Ah,... the innocence of youth.

I wonder if dodgeball was first introduced in an effort to get children acquainted with the tried-and-tested line 'em up and shoot things at each other method of warfare? I wonder what the Empire-obsessed military types would think if they thought for a moment and considered that the ideal way to not get caught playing (British) bulldog is to make the person to the side of you get caught instead by means of cowardice, cunning and ultimately running away. Maybe that's why they called it bulldog rather than chicken.
Childhood games should be re-structured to suit modern adult life. Instead of going outside in the sunlight and fresh air to run about, climb trees and inflict physical harm upon each other, children would stay indoors at their desks and inflict upon themselves great mental stress and anguish whilst wearing stiff, unsuitable and uncomfortable clothing. Selected children would be made to drink vast quantities of vinegar to simulate ulcers, others would be encouraged to eat butter constantly to aid their predisposition to coronary ischaemia and yet others would be made to practice the swift movements of piles of paper around a desk. Hypnosis would be administered to convince these children that this work was important. Extremely interesting things would be performed by actors outside so that children with a predisposition to stare out of the window, convinced of the uselessness of their work would be encouraged so to do. The child with the shiniest shoes and shortest hair would then be employed to shout at these children to encourage in the others the sense that they are somehow doing the right thing - they themselves are being shouted at less than other people and are therefore better in some way. Maybe there could even be small mock-Volvo stickers for the children to lace on their bicycles, not they they use them anymore.

You've taken my breath away! (I've got to stop my lips from moving when I read)

I'm thinking that the painful process of selecting teammates for dodgeball may be intended to be a first lesson in "How popular aren't you?", as the athetic coach always picks his/her 2 favorite children to be captains. At this point, having been invested with the Power To Make Time Stand Still, these bright and smarmy captains are sure to take advantage of their postion to make sure that the least amount of too-skinny, too-fat, wierd-looking, and kids-with-the-thickest-glasses end up on their team. And if a captain does get stuck with some of these unfortunates? It's very imporant to let Those Last Chosen know exactly How Much It Will Be Their Fault If The Team Loses.

The Australian version is very much every 'man for himself' with no teams, sort of tag with a ball. Though the universal similarity is that the "too-skinny, too-fat, wierd-looking, and kids-with-the-thickest-glasses " ones seem to suffer the most.

How come the researchers who say there's "no such thing as a child born evil" never include this style of childhood games in the equation?


;^)#

As one of the organised-sports-hating children who detested such shite as football, I was always at a loss what to do when the teacher decided it was the turn of one of the organised-sports-hating children to pick teams. Should I ridicule the whole game by ensuring that one side is assembled in its entirity of the people that always found a corner to lurk in rather than indulge? Make sure each team has an equally good number of players so that the people who don't want to have to play football, cricket or something even worse are able to leave the playing to others? Picking the crap people first to give them some sense of self-esteem resulted in the other picker getting all the good people which resulted in the unbalanced-teams scenario. It wasn't until we got to play hockey at 16 that I found a team sport that was worthwhile and for which I was one of the first to be picked. Is it true of all schools around the country that non-glory-for-the-school sports such as swimming were spurned by the sports dept. to the alienation of those who could thrash any kid in the school swimming but who were prevented from entering regional competitions in that area merely because the school chose to ignore them? Maybe it was disheartening for all the sports-loving thickies to find that the kid who couldn't control the direction the football chose to take after being toe-punted or who broke the Unwritten Rule of English Manhood by declaring that cricket was shit could swim two lengths underwater in the time it took them to do a width. How I laughed when the poor weak fools broke their ankles doing the long-jump. If they didn't take it all so seriously A) they'd not have knackered their joints training themselves into the ground since before their bones were fully ossified and B) they'd have realised that some of the best things in life don't involve the ankles at all. Maybe if they'd taken the time to strengthen their joints and capsules by exercising in a dense medium they wouldn't have broken. When they slagged me for being unable to throw anything I would climb trees in an attempt to demonstrate that arm strength was nothing to do with throwing but they ignored me. They can take their populist team games and shove them up each other's arses in the communal shower after the game. At least we didn't have to play rugby at school.

Is it just my imagination, or am I sensing some hostility here?

Grrr. Team Games. Don't tell me about learning to work as part of a larger group towards a common purpose in preparation for many situations in adult life.

Hmmm, I think the Autsralian version (brandings) is a truer preparation for adult life.


;^)#

I think you're all mad. But for what it's worth, one of the most traumatic childhood games I knew of (in both Australia and the UK -- I've lived in both) was 'catch and kiss'. It really separated the cool from the uncool: the ugly kids just ran around in circles desperately hoping to be caught and the cute ones ran either hard to get some fresh air or slowly to be caught by the right person. The ugly resourceful ones (like me) pretended to be the papparazzi.

I wish more games in school were like that. What's wrong with a game that involves love instead of aggression, gentle caresses instead of painful shoving, a flirting wink instead of a hateful glare?

Let's all try a little more love, and a little less hate, no matter which side of the pond we happen to live.

And once in a while, let one of the "uncool" kids catch you. They'll pleasantly surprise you.


The Traveller
ISO-9001 Certified

*has vague memories of co-operating with four of five other "uncool" kids to catch some girl, and then sharing out the proceeds in an equitable manner*...

The, uh, innocence of, uh, youth. Yet, even then, there were more guys wanting to chase than girls wanting to be caught...