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

Cricket always amazes me - five day games can end in a draw, and the 'highlights' alone last more than three hours in total.

As for golf - it's awfully dull, the ball just sits there until they hit it and nobody tries to stop them. A man in a lion suit jumping out from rough would make things more interesting.

"Do you think competitive sports are a good thing in schools or do they unfairly marginalise the non-sporty?"

There seems to be an assumption here that unfairly marginalising the non-sporty is a bad thing. Are you implying that anyone spending their time online on a lovely day like this must be non-sporty?

By the way:

dual in the sun --> duel in the sun

Alex

>>> A man in a lion suit jumping out from rough would make things more interesting.

LOL We'll fix dual/duel right away

Dueling in the sun? Quite literally, please!

I'm willing to jugggle, ride horses, and do swordfighting. Those sports are more or less watchable, too. The rest? Nah... (Yes, it's true, I was always the last to be picked at school ) Cycling and walking don't count as sports, really, they're just my standard mode of transportation.

I don't watch TV anyway (I don't *have* a TV, there's never anything good on, and if there is, it's dubbed) so I don't care what's on TV.

Dueling in the sun can be dangerous, though - it gets quite hot in those helmets! We once had a reenactment battle called off by one of the medics. Somehow they thought a sunny battlefield, full medieval armour, and 35° in the shade wasn't a good combination, so they stopped us after the first half hour

That was when we were performing pre-match at one of the "public viewing areas" during the last World Cup. I went home to shower before the game even started, and then had a nice walk in the nearly deserted park while everyone else was glued to their televisions.


So while I'll agree that summer is a wonderful time for sports, it's not a wonderful time to sit around indoors watching others do them for you. Never quite saw the point of that Summer is the perfect time to televise sports; nobody wants to watch boring things like that anyway, and everyone sensible will be out enjoying themselves instead of watching TV.

Cricket and golf numb the brain, to my mind they are both boring to the end-th degree as a spectator sport and I just cannot understand people sitting for hours watching them on TV.

Cricket would be more exciting if there was just ONE match, but they play over and over and over again.

Golf, well hitting a ball down a hole... and yet I have a near neighbour who disrupts the peace of our estate with a form of Chinese water torture on a pleasant afternoon by thwacking his golf balls into a driving net in his back garden, shick .. thump, over and over and over again. For goodness sake I wish he'd go to the local golf course and actually play a game

As for sports commentators, correspondents and interviewees on radio and TV how do they flesh out the fact that if they play better than the other side they will win .... generally with the blindingly obvious statement and overuse of the word "obviously" and as it is obvious, that is a particular irritation.

Believe me once you start spotting "obviously" in Radio and TV reports and interviews it will drive you to distraction

The only summer sport that I do enjoy watching on TV is tennis, with the proviso that its mens singles with at least one player who does not grunt. Federer's matches at Wimbledon were class, especially that epic final that had me on the edge of my seat! Goodness knows how his wife felt so near to giving birth, I'd have had kittens!!!!

Women shriek far too much these days for my tastes and the whispering between shots in the doubles has gone too far to make it a pleasure to watch!