October 22, 2003

REMEMBER the games you used to play when you were in school? I'm not talking about the official ones - kick a ball around a field, chase an egg around a field, run round and round the %£*#!& field - but the ones played in breaktime. Most of them were great; take Army, for example. Forty kids all shouting "bang bang you're dead" at each other with a miss ratio that would put the A-Team to shame. Or there was soccer, with two teams of 30 divided into one keeper and 29 goalhangers. Oh, to be 18 again. But there was one game that always baffled me - rock, paper, scissors.

I could never get the rules - "But surely a rock would go through a sheet of paper?" - and it seemed pretty dull compared to, say, the delicate art of posting, or moving Jackie Barr's Mini into new and interesting positions in the car park.

So you could have knocked me down with a very small feather when I discovered the World Rock Paper Scissors Championships (rpschamps.com) are taking place in Toronto next week. I never knew this sport has such a following, and that's coming from a bloke who found a webpage about squirrel-fishing.

The rules are simple - you're only allowed to beat your opponent using the Rock, Paper or Scissors throws. Others are banned, and these include the Texas Longhorn, Dynamite, Spock, Water, Match, Fire, God, Lightning and Bomb. So if you're a cattle-herding pyromaniac deity from Vulcan with access to high explosives, you're knackered.

And if you want to compete, you have to enter at your own risk. Risk of what, I'm not sure, but I guess if people are throwing lightning around the room it could be dangerous. There's a team entering from the UK, so good luck to Rob, Andrew, James, Will and Dougal, who are in line to pocket £2,500 if they win. Now, if that had been the prize back in my schooldays, I'd have paid more attention to the quiet corner of the playground instead of shouting "You missed!" at the top of my voice.

BUT that's positively sane compared to outhouse racing in Northern Michigan (jldr.com/ohraces.html). According to the website, 3,000 people can't be wrong. They also say that about Elvis fans, so I'm not convinced.