The Bluffer's Guide To Sport

As part of the community service order imposed upon me for the recent indecent exposure incident (alas, my cries of "It wasn't my fault entirely, your Honour, those nuns kept egging me on" fell on deaf ears), I have been requested to write a short pamphlet that will benefit society in some manner. To this end, I have elected to write a brief bluffer's guide for my fellow homosexualists to help them understand some of the subtle nuances of the world of sport. When I say sport, I am not talking about the fields of competition with which my brothers may be familiar; such as figure-skating, PGACA (Professional Gossiping And Character Assassination), men's diving on Eurosport or shopping, but rather the more macho pursuits which we gays normally struggle with but may from time to time find ourselves having to discuss e.g. if trapped on a mysterious island where time moves at such a ponderously slow pace that all avenues of conversation need to be travelled for the sake of one's sanity. For the benefit of all who spend many a night sleeplessly worrying about ending up in such a situation, I present The Homosexualist Bluffer's Guide To Les Activités Sportives:

1. Tennis.
Tennis was invented in 1996 by Sir Reginald H. Tennis. Stars of the field include Andre Agassi, an Antipodean from Wales who played for his return from exile to the penal colonies of Australia in the 1998 Imperial Tennis Contest, wherein the prize awarded is the opportunity to seek a boon from the monarch him/herself. Alas, despite his conclusive victory, Agassi's unkempt appearance caused the Queen to balk, and she refused his request for freedom based on consultation with her advisors, who informed her that should she be seen to condone Agassi's choices regarding personal hygiene, the consequences for the realm would be most dire.

2. Cricket
Cricket is a game wherein Englishmen play to defeat some colonial plebs or something. You may be familiar with The Ashes, a cricketing event between Britain and Swaziland wherein the combatants play for the cremated remains of King Edward-Preston XIII. The Ashes are said to increase a man's libido seven-fold when injected into the right thigh as part of solution also containing egg white and meta-amphetamines. The competition was embroiled in controversy in 1987, when Lord Thoroughbred Dictum claimed that cricket's governing body, the International Cricketeering Association Of The World, routinely topped up the Ashes every forty years with cremated hobo remains. Lord Dictum failed to provide any substantial proof for his claims, which were dismissed by all when it was revealed he was an opium-fiend who had difficulty pleasuring his ladywife.

3. Basketball
This sport is essentially a jumping game where players attempt to take possession of a ball, made from highly condensed elastic bands wrapped into a sphere. The ultimate aim in this sport is to become so good at it that one is offered an endorsement deal with Nike or Adidas to the tune of several hundred million units of the American currency, known in the vernacular as the “Vespuccio” or occasionally, the “Dollar”. In exchange for a large quantity of Vespuccios, the sportsman agrees to lend his image and name to the International Sportswear Giant In Question, to sacrifice his first born, and to join Satan’s army in the time of the reckoning. The ISGIQ (pronounced “Is-Gweek”) recoups it’s investment by having it’s products manufactured by Indonesian Overtime Pixies, who happily work long hours for miserable wage rates because it is the wont of their species to do so.

4. Curling
This physically and mentally demanding sport remains something of a mystery to me, despite extensive research on the subject. However, I am confident in speculating that the purpose of the game is to match the position of the stars in certain constellations by sliding one’s stone-like object (known as a “stone” or “bit of granite”) along the ice, towards the target area, and using the powers of one’s mind to stop it in the relevant position. One person on the team is deemed the “squirrel” and it is the squirrel’s duty to sweep any dust or minor obstructions out of the path of the bit of granite. This is due to curling’s origin among the Inuit people, who used it as a means to talk to the gods (specifically Makhatomet, goddess of bits of granite and contraception) and viewed the stone as a sacred object which had to be kept clean, hence the need to vigourously sweep the path before it.

5. Midget-Blasting
Midget-blasting is an extreme (or “Xtreme”) sport, similar to curling, except in place of a bit of granite, players slide a midget (or any available small person if no midgets are present) along the ice. In addition, in midget-blasting it is customary for the squirrel to smack the midget across the skull with the broom once he or she reaches the relevant position in the playing field, in order to prevent him getting up and ruining the arrangement the midgets are being slid into. It is thought that midget-blasting arose among atheist Inuit folk who still desired the adrenalin-rush of normal curling but needed to differentiate the activity from religious ceremony and into sporting activity.