Sheep line up to be shorn; persuaded to wear docking rings to show support for shearers

Any fule kno by now that the Rugby World Cup about to splash down in New Zealand like an oversized turd into a half-sized punchbowl is really an elaborate experiment. The sociologists have found an isolated population of nimrods and dimbulbs and they are wondering: How many arbitrary humiliations and injuries can Kiwis be persuaded to inflict on themselves by presenting them as visible signs of support for the local team,* before they are finally all "Bugger this for a game of soldiers"?

Last week, of course, the purity test gesture of support was to donate a $130 Stupidity Tax to a China-based, Germany-headquartered clothing manufacturer.

Now foopball players are renowned for conserving energy for the game through sexual continence, so this week we are being exhorted to give up sex to show our solidarity. No really. Also our abstinence will help the team more if we sign up with a telecommunications company and wear black rubber rings around our necks fingers.

Pressed to explain the intended target for this veritable FAILvalance, the Telecom marketing director admitted that other forms of mortification and self-denial would boost the team's chances just as effectively:

...Cooney said the campaign isn't necessarily about just abstaining from sex, saying participants could give up anything during the tournament.

Perhaps they picked on sex as the activity most New Zealanders will find it easiest to eschew and will miss the least, rather than (say) drinking. I suppose we are lucky they didn't go the Mayan route and call for a national campaign of tongue-piercing and penile blood-letting.

It will certainly be terrible if the effect of this abstinence campaign is to shed a pall of suspicion over anyone not wearing the ring, that they lack a collective identity and spend their nights screwing like minks on methedrine.

* "Local" in the sense of "Paid by the NZ Rugby Union". Not intended to mean that team members were born in NZ or hold NZ citizenship.