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

The role of the umpire in Australian Rules is an interesting one.

The party line is that he (no woman is stupid enough) is there to officiate and inform the players and spectators of the various breaches that have occurred.

The actuality is that he is universally acknowledged by all players and spectators to be the person who is least informed and least endowed with retinal perception! Many helpful spectators do try to remind this hapless employee of the sports bureaurocracy (? - ruling body!) that his glasses should be brought to the game, but alas, memory is not one of the defining qualities by which they are selected. This obviously makes the other attendees rather irate!

I believe that this traditional and organised form of authority abuse is a left over from Australia's origin as a penal colony.

The referee in Rugby ( also known as 'catch and kill' and not be confused with Rugby League also known as 'grapple and grunt' by AFL dilettantes) is treated almost universally with respect. The most that these gentleman have to content with is the occasional call of "forward"!

The standard of abuse ranges from the inane to the sublime. People who, I suspect spend their weeks in the dullest production line jobs, come out on the weekend and launch into the white maggots.

A week's brain-dead work makes them quite witty on the weekend and often painfully correct in their observations.

This does not apply to AFL crowds who are singularly boorish and ill-informed.