Croquet Q&A

Q: Is croquet the same as pall mall or are their origins tied together ? I'se got ta know.

A: If you are aware of the game of Pall Mall, or Paille-maille, as it is more accurately known, then I suspect you don't need me to inform you about its roots, or its relationship to modern croquet. However, for the beneficial of less learned readers, I will humour you nevertheless :)

The names Pall Mall and Paille-maille are both derived from the French "pôle mal" which means "bad pole". This was an expression of the frustration, humiliation and emotional degradation associated with using a mallet to get a ball to go through a small hoop dozens of metres away.

In fact, it is little known that Paille-maille was originally designed by the Mongols as a torture device to be used during their empirical rule in the 13th and 14th centuries. The Mongols would force their prisoners of war to play Paille-maille for hours on end, while the guards would stand by and make inane and unhelpful comments, such as "it's a baby ball, come on, it's a baby ball, be gentle, don't hurt the baby ball..." until eventually the prisoner would give up in frustration and submit himself voluntarily to a merciful death, such as castration or having his spine ripped out.

The Mongols eventually moved in to China and brought their torture techniques with them. The Chinese experimented with Paille-maille until eventually it was ruled far too cruel, and was replaced with the Chinese Water torture, bamboo finger nails and various others that are well-known today.

Eventually the torture technique spread throughout the world and various more sadistic societies, such as the French, took it up as a sport for the sheer enjoyment of watching each other suffer. Unexpectedly its popularity soared, and Pall Mall led to Ground Billiards, Croquet, and, eventually modern Golf.

Whenever I feel the urge to play any of these sports, I simply drive a couple of bamboo shafts under my nails and save myself a valuable afternoon.

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A hit for the team

Q: Over the past couple of years there has been numerous accounts of rugby league footballers engaging in "group sex". Most recently, 3 Brisbane Broncos players had sex with a 22 year old female in a toilet cubicle of a night club and as reported 3 weeks ago, 11 Cronulla Sharks players had sex with a 19 year old waitress whilst touring New Zealand.

Who really is the victim ? If a girl gives consent at the time and the other parties arent concerned with "banging heads" ( pardon the pun ) then what is all the fuss about ? Is there a case to answer for the high profile footballers? have you ever engaged in group sex ?

IMO, the young lady in NZ should have kept quiet whilst having sex , everyone knows that thrashing around and screaming only attracts other Sharks.

A: This is a storm in a teacup which has been blown out of all proprtion. There is no victim, and there is no winner.

The truth is that these footballers are part of a world-wide humanitarian group called the "Altruistic Adonises". The goal of this group is to further the diversification of the human race by ensuring that even physically disadvantaged or unfit men are able to find attractive women with which to procreate.

To achieve this, they target male groups that are much better looking than the rest of us and encourage several measures to keep them from "hogging" all the women.

One of those measures is to share females in order to free up others to copulate with less attractive men. It is not "group sex" in the typical definition, but a way to conserve the female resources of our society.

Several football clubs list the "Altruistic Adonises" as a requirement of team membership.

I, for one, salute them for their continuing effort to give us nerds time on the playing field!

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