In a message dated 2/20/01 5:05:05 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
N.Faulkner(a)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