In a message dated 2/20/01 5:05:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, N.Faulkner@tesco.net writes:

<< "Hello, mate." "Wotcha. Have a good weekend?" "Er... yeah. Yeah, it was alright." "Oh yeah. So what have you been up to then?" "Not a lot. Got together with some mates, y'know." "Yeah. And?" "Well, we found ourselves a bit of green, like, and ... er ... well, we kicked a ball around." "Pull the other one!" "No, really, we do it every week." "You're having me on! Kicking a ball around, I ask you." "There's rules and stuff." "Never heard anything so daft in me life. Not on Saturday, I hope." "Well, yeah, it was actually..." "It was pissing down all bleeding day." "Yeah, so? We got a bit muddy, that's all." "You must be out of your bleeding tree. Sounds right daft. And a bit dangerous too if you ask me." "Well, one bloke did break a collar bone, but, y'know, that's just one of the risks, like." "Only broke a collar bone? You ought to be locked up." "Aw, c',mon, mate, it's fun." "Kicking a ball about in the pouring rain and breaking your collar bone? You've got a right twisted idea of fun there, my son. You're well short of normal, you are." "I scored a goal." "You scored a what?" "A goal. Y'know, when you put the ball between these two posts, like." "So you kick a ball about and try and get it between two posts? I guess some people are just easily amused." "There's a bloke there trying to stop you and all. He's called the goalkeeper." "Fancy titles and all, eh?" "We've all got 'em. I'm a right back." "You're a right something, that's for sure. Why don't you do what everyone else does and write a PGP novel..." >>

Brilliant, Neil. Absolutely dead on. I've had to bite my tongue all day at my office, where I'm constantly teased about the few fannish pictures I've got in my cubical; but when a bunch of grown people drive their cars around and around and around a track 500 times to a crowd of screaming, beer-soaked 'fans' and one of their number gets himself creamed on the lasts lap, it's a matter of dignity and monumental portent, to be spoken of in hushed, respectful tones. I'll wager that if a cast member of one of our favorite fannish programs died during the filming of a stunt, there would be mockery over a similar sorrow.

But hey, that's 'different'. Those folks are nutballs and geeks, right?

Leah