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

[spk]

Hey all. Glad to hear you are surviving the chocolate fast (though I hope your family are feeling better GL).

Me, I like Formula One. I am a bit embarrassed about it; I blame coming from an engineering family but being an arts graduate. Clearly it is some kind of displacement. Furthermore, it seems like a sport with an actual reason to it, and try as I might, I cannot see how football etc advances the sum of human knowledge any. The ability to move a ball skillfully around a field does not appear to have any point. I am prepared to agree to disagree on this matter though . You can tell I'm not a sporty person, can't you? No one is ever gonna force me to put my money where my mouth is and drive a car at ludicrous speeds round a track, I thank you god.

Oh. I do do kickboxing. But that is also rather embarrassing.

[Amy]

[d'E]
[]

{[B17 Sport *shudder*, well, most of it ]}

[Munchkin, staggering in for five minutes away from the general Easter backlog, which is well scary in its enormity]

*adds card to avalanche*

{WM}

*Returns* Now, what can I remember of what I just read? Er.. Glad to hear most of you had a good weekend, very envious of the Jag, didn't touch chocolate all weekend, cooked a proper dinner on Saturday for the first time since fish crawled out of the sea and decided they quite liked this breathing malarkey, I pay to go see rugby and have been known to watch the odd footie game on TV and now understand the comment made on the BBC website about Harry Secombe from a fan "I hope Spike sings at his funeral" (It was a standing Goon joke that his singing was terrible). Ah well, off to do some work.

Munchkin, favorite Spike moment was when he insulted Prince Charles live on national TV, I was almost sick with laughter.

[jr]
*trying to add card to stack w/o tipping it over or attracting attention all the while mumbling on about begging forgivness and muttering apologies for his almost inexcusable absence and downright shoddy behavior as a guest*

Munchkin, tell us unBrits what he said! Or tell us on ezboard -- I'd hate to see you get moderated.

During one period of the time I lived in Brum, I took in lodgers, and had three blokes in to move television sets and change fuses and such (they were heady days of unbridled female chauvinism). All three were university students. On Saturdays we gathered in front of 'telly at 1 pm, and hung in till 5. If there was going to be a particularly good football game involving the top of the first division, then more people would arrive to share the experience. That latter phrase may have been irreparably cheapened by New Age Californians, but it was the very thing that made me come to adore football (soccer football, fellow Mairc'ns, ok?). Sports were not meant to be watched alone. These Saturday sessions also gave me a lot of affection for track and field, and I adored Sebastian Coe.

A friend took me to a real football match, even though it was Birmingham City (2nd division at the time). The singing contests astounded me -- I had thought only Eskimos practised that -- and the whole stadium was awash in testosterone. My hormones were in an uproar for days afterwards.

As a horse professional, I get intelligible pleasure from 3-day eventing. This was originally an Army sport, a way of honing essential skills for the horse-and-rider combination. It has 5 parts, beginning with dressage, which is a precision excercise made all the more difficult by the fact that the horses are fit and oated up to the gills for the trials ahead. Dressage demonstrates the form, subtlety and tact of the rider, and the willingness, cadence and balance of the horse. All parade ground requisites for the military steed.

The next day combines 3 elements. First is the distance ride (optimum time required, with penalties for going too fast and possibly messing up the horse). There is a brief rest and then the horse goes directly into a steeplechase (solo). The culminating event is the 4-mile cross-country, which is what draws the crowds looking for blood and spills. No jump may be more than 4'10" high or 5' across, but that puts your average flatbed trailer within range. And one can do psychological things like dig a bloody great ditch under the trailer. Some combinations will involve jumping into water, sploshing along for a bit and jumping out again. Some involve Snowy River-style cliffs (and could be taken in either direction). All jumps are solid; they do not disintegrate at a touch. The horses are vetted between every phase, and eliminated if they are deemed unfit or too tired to continue.

The application of all this to the military model is obvious, and one still sees officers or various nations competing in the sport today.

The third day is for the final phase, the show jumping. The jumps are modest, unlike the stuff you see in other horse shows. The purpose is to demonstrate that the horse still has the stamina and fitness to continue after the strenuous effort of the previous day.

What Solnushka said about Formula 1 improving the motor vehicle also applies to 3-day eventing. For over a century this trial has been a way to improve not just the horse but methods of training and conserving it.

Hurrah! It posted! I thought I was going to lose that whole horse rant for a moment.

*jumps up happpily and, in running toward kitchen, bumps into small ornamental table holding all the calling cards*

*watches in amusement and shakes head as cards tumble from the table in all directions, a veritable snowstorm of paper, card and electronic wizardry*

Well my team won! It was a nailbiter however. Loony, thanks for the offer but if I am not watching it on the telly I will have a gamecast on [URL removed by marv before the moderators do] up and running at my desk at work. I also enjoy formula 1 racing esp Michael Schumaker. Then again as I mentioned before I like all motor sports, even the traditional redneck favourites of tractort pulls and monster trucks. When I was pitting for the late model stock car team we had a race where monster trucks were part of the show. They would rush cars between heats of our races. That was a great deal of fun for me. I also once drove a thunder stock car (old beat up junkers that you get to smash around the track) and came in second place.

Morning all!

Sea, I'm actually quite familiar with A Chorus Line. Its a wonderful play and I think you'll have lots of fun with it. Which role are you playing?

Wow! That was quite the game wasn't it, Marv. Just so you know, the other two were almost as bad. I will have no hair or nails left by the time the Avs win the Cup!

Sports, well... Ice Hockey, obviously. Real football, as well. I've tried watching cricket, but seem to be missing something. (If anyone cares to explain it to me I'd be happy to learn.) Rugby I've learned to understand, although I don't get to watch very often. Most winter sports are entertaining to watch, if not necessarily to do. Horese! Well, my aunt used to breed, raise and train Quarter Horses and Appaloosas for show, and I rode in a couple of Junior shows when I was younger, so they'll always interest me.

Um... I think that's it for now. I like watching sheep dog trials and dog agility shows, but I don't count that as sport...

Matina, tea please. Thank you.

G7

There is a thread somewhere back way back about rules of cricket... I wonder if it's been vetted and made available yet?

Sheep dog trials are fantastic -- I would class them as art, like dressage.

You can be sure I'll have a horse or two when I get to New Mexico. But not eventers. Even if I weren't too old to ride them, NM is not the right territory. No, I'll have a couple of extremely sensible quarter horses...

Quarter horses do wonderfully well in the southwest, Lil. Morgans and Appaloosas tend to be the other breeds that do very well. But then, all three breeds do well just about anywhere.

I have to agree that the sheep dog trials are art. We recently got BBC America and watch One Man and His Dog on a regular basis. There's also the chance, occassionally to see trials in person at the various local fairs. Very, very entertaining. Almost magical in fact.

G7

*Peeps around the doorframe with a [GL] in his hand. Notices the mound of other cards spilling off the table onto the floor. Shrugs and adds the [GL] to the pile, dislodging a few others which slide to the floor.*

G7, Cricket is, to my mind, a game to have on, in the background, when doing something else. I've never actually watched it, just had it on often. Its very soothing and makes me think of summer and lazy days.
As to Mr. Milligan. He was being awarded a lifetime achievement award for Comedy (or some such), and a special letter was brought out and read aloud. It was(quite obviously) from The Prince of Wales, but was written in a pseudo-Goon style, and made many silly references (Charles being a mad fan). As the letter drew to a close, Spike turned, slowly as he is rather old, to the camera and said "Grovelling little b*****d" The audience went deathly silent, there was a moment of indrawn breath, he grinned, people started to laugh, I fell off my seat and there was a nasty editorial in the Mail the following day. As far as I know, Charles found it funny. It was just the slow deliberate way in which he insulted the heir to the throne that made it funny, and of course the fact that he didn't mean it. (They are great friends, in an "Excuse me Mr. Milligan, can I have your autograph again please?" sort of way)
Probably don't sound so good in the retelling.

Love the Spike story. I've just had a wonderful (blissful) mental picture of it, so I doubt it lost anything in the retelling.

I know an excellent way to wind up fans of cricket. What you do is walk in in the middleof a game ans say, brightly, "so, wjho's winning then?" Wherupon they are forced to explain that you don't look at cricket innings like that, especially if the game is expected to go on for days. If you are feeling really annoying you can foolow it up with "well, who is generally ahead?" and after this even the "So who do you think will win?" is guarenteed to produce clenched teeth.

The horse thing is interesting. I wonder what a list of sensible, beneficial sports would look like.

Oooh boy! Now I know how to annoy anyone I find watching the game at the local pubs. I have actually seen it played on some world sports channel once at the smallest bar I have ever been in. It holds only 25 people.