On Ruggers, and Other Such Pastimes 

Diamond Geezer has a great post on rugby:

I've always hated rugby. I probably didn't realise it existed before I was 11, because my enlightened primary school played (proper) football instead. OK, so I may have been rubbish at playing that too, but at least my life wasn't in danger every time I had a PE lesson. My secondary school, alas, believed that rugger was the one true sport. I spent every winter for five years freezing to death in a stripy jersey while boys who'd already hit puberty wrestled with each other in muddy puddles. I spent every match trying hard to keep out of the way, in case the ball might accidentally be thrown in my direction and a horde of lumbering animals launch themselves on top of me. I cowered every time I was selected for the scrum in case some crucial body part of mine be squashed or wrenched off in the grunting mêlé. And I scored a try only once, when my sadistic PE teacher noticed me standing beside the touch line and threw me the ball, no doubt expecting me to fumble it and then be crushed in a pile of adolescent limbs. He was disappointed, but only on this one single miserable occasion.

How dare you describe this important formative part of British schooling? Just as forcing three prayers a day out of me for the first seven years of schooling served only to catalyse my atheism, the whole damp, soggy and miserable experience of making me play rugby for five years has vaccinated me against almost all forms of team sport.

Talking of sports, I found another blog post about the topic:

No, for me, what I have always hated is watching sports, and not so much that, but the huge emphasis placed on sports starting from a very young age. I hated seeing so much time and effort put into sports and sporting events, making small celebrities out of the athletes while at the same time, those who were in school for the actual purpose of school - to be educated, were sidelined.

Now, this has probably handicapped me for life socially, because apparently all men are supposed to be able to relate to each other through talking about sports. But I have no interest in sports and know nothing about any teams or players and never watch any games. This might be perhaps why I don't make many male friends, at least, fewer than average.

Imagine if we celebrated our scientists, engineers and philosophers in the way we celebrate our sportsmen. I'm not necessarily saying we should, just that it's an interesting lens to look at the world through occasionally.