RE: FW: England humour

From: Vincent Campbell (v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Sep 11 2001 - 12:38:25 BST

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    From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk>
    To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
    Subject: RE: FW: England humour
    Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 12:38:25 +0100
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    That's not the British Bulldog I remember, a playground ('schoolyard'?) game
    which begins with one person being 'it', and the rest of the entire school
    having to run between two designated lines in the available space. The
    first person to be caught (simply by being touched), joins the person being
    'it' and so on until everyone has been caught. Once everyone has been
    caught you start again, this time with the first person to be caught in the
    previous round starting out as the first person to be 'it'. If you're a
    crap runner, like I am, the best strategy was always to wait until someone
    had been caught before making a dash for the other safe area, because if you
    were it first, it was bloody hard to catch anyone (a bit like a cheetah
    trying to work out which Thompson's gazelle to go after- only with less
    speed and grace).

    One variation has the people who are it having to stay joined together,
    increasingly forming a big line of people you have to try and get past.

    In the peak of American Football frenzy in the UK in the mid-1980s, touch
    football was played in schools as people, liked to practise their Joe
    Montana and Dan Marino quarterback techniques, or their Walter Payton runs.
    Even this was usually quite civilised.

    I believe the technical term employed in my hometown for the kind of "game"
    you're talking about was 'a bundle', a kind of good natured fight in which
    the goal was to get some one off their feet and pile on top of them, for no
    apparent purpose- exactly like the play fights of young predators.

    Vincent

    > ----------
    > From: Lawrence DeBivort
    > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 12:40 am
    > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Subject: RE: FW: England humour
    >
    > On the Duke campus recently, I played "British Bulldog" with a bunch of
    > students. No ball: the goal was for two opposing teams to rush at each
    > other, grab as many of their opponents as possible and haul them, kicking
    > and wrestling, over the opposite line. Whoever was successfully dragged
    > across then became part of the team that dragged them. It was a greatly
    > simplified version of rugby, I suppose, with people serving as balls, a
    > bit
    > neanderthal and tremendous fun.
    >
    > Lawrence
    >
    >
    > > -----Original Message-----
    > > From: fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-bounces@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf Of
    > > Scott Chase
    > > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 8:47 PM
    > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > > Subject: RE: FW: England humour
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > >From: "Derek Gatherer" <gatherer@biotech.ufl.org>
    > > >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > > >Subject: RE: FW: England humour
    > > >Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:26:22 -0500 (EST)
    > > >
    > > >Oops! What am I doing here??
    > > >That's better probably.... now I have more than one line per message.
    > > >What was I trying to say?
    > > >Association football had its first rulebook around 1860, which makes it
    > a
    > > >fairly distant outlier in the football phylogeny.
    > > >The real outliers of course are Aussie Rules and Gaelic football, which
    > > >probably
    > > >split from the rest at a very early date. There's also Winchester
    > > >football, which is only played at Winchester school.
    > > >That's probably going to be an early one, but I'm not sure quite how
    > > >early...
    > > >
    > > >
    > > >
    > > What was "kick the skull"?
    > >
    > > There's also the favo(u)rite of my early elementary school days
    > > called "kill
    > > the man with the ball", after we had graduated from the more relaxed
    > > "dodgeball".
    > >
    > > We played full contact football during recess when I was in 4th and 5th
    > > grade. In 6th grade, during my one year in parochial school at an
    > > Episcopalian church (American version of Anglican?) we played an
    > > odd hybrid
    > > of soccer and football, which was probably passed down through
    > > the "forms"
    > > over the years. There were soccer style goals to kick the ball
    > > into, but we
    > > actually carried the ball instead of kicking it on the ground and
    > > grappled
    > > with each other for control over the ball.
    > >
    > > In junior high scool, we played flag football, "football" American style
    > > where instead of knocking the living daylights out of the person
    > carrying
    > > the ball, one could merely attempt to rip a flag attached to their hip
    > by
    > > velcro. Boring. We also played something called "Gatorball" which I
    > can't
    > > remember the exact rules for, but it was kinda like a rugbyish American
    > > football / soccer hybrid. We also played soccer, but I wound up
    > > getting sick
    > > of getting kicked severely in the shins so never liked it a whole
    > > lot. There
    > > was a league in the USA called NASL back then with teams IIRC called New
    > > York Cosmos, Tampa Bay Rowdies, and New England Teamen (I'm sure
    > > the Brits
    > > like the sound of that one ;-)).
    > >
    > > One of my great regrets was losing a book IIRC by _Sports
    > > Illustrated_ which
    > > was the history of American football arranged as newspaper clippings.
    > >
    > >
    > > _________________________________________________________________
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    > >
    > >
    > > ===============================================================
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    > > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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    >
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    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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    >

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    =============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit



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