SUPER DODGEBALL

At the beginning of kindergarten and grade one classes, we always ask the kids a bunch of questions: what animal do you like? What food do you like? What sportusu do you like? – hamtaaro, peeza, dodge ball. I’m never sure about the last one. Does it really qualify as a sport? Will we see it in the Beijing Olympics?
But then one cold rainy weekend I’m trying to stomach the daikon soup – a Japanese style turnip – I’ve just made, flicking channels on my old TV, itself constantly flicking between green and colour, and there it is! Okay, Japanese TV is famous for its craziness, though all I ever seem to find are bad soap operas (okay, an obvious oxymoron), baseball, news I don’t understand, baseball and more soap operas.
But SUPER DODGEBALL could save my starved intellect. I’m guessing it’s not big yet as they are still explaining the rules at the beginning of the programme. They never do that with baseball, though in true I’ve never lasted more than 28 secs into a game of baseball. They don’t even have seagulls on the pitch.
Okay, SUPER DODGEBALL; two opposing teams, two balls, 5 starting players on each team. The aim, as far as I could see, is to beat the crap out of an opponent with a ball a touch smaller than a volleyball, which can be held in a large palm. After flinging all your weight behind this ball in the direction of said opponent, if you succeed in a direct hit, they are eliminated. Sayonara. However, if they manage to catch this hurtling piece of leather, they get an extra player brought onto their team. Double however, if you target your unlucky opponent in the head, you get an extra player. When all players are eliminated from one team, the other team wins. Obvious really!
Funniest home videos would pay a fortune for the slo-mo instant replay of this woman getting smacked in the side of the cheek. George Bush should fight wars this way and trade all his weapons stock for shares in CNN. Ratings would skyrocket if you had a bunch of guys out in the desert hurling leather balls at each other. It could be the new chess. Even I’d sign up if I got a free education in exchange for an afternoon of getting my brains pulped out. Cheaper than karate classes and more exciting than uranium coated bullets. And there’s always the chance of a late comeback. Maybe George would even think twice about going to war if there was a chance of a fair fight.
So start up a local club and petition your friendly local Olympic official to include the sport at Beijing. Definitely more entertaining than synchronised swimming.