Aussie Rules Rules.....OK?

Twitter is a weird and wonderful place. I regularly tweet with humans, other guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs, capybaras and even a gecko. Talking of reptiles, there was a wonderful tweet on Anzac Day/Easter Monday by a certain Jim Wallace - the Managing Director of the Australian Christian Lobby. His tweet went like this. "Just hope that as we remember Servicemen and women today we remember the Australia they fought for - wasn't gay marriage and Islamic!" What an extraordinary thing for a man of God to say on a day that is supposed to celebrate those who sacrificed their lives for the Australian ethos of tolerance and a "fair go" for all. In one fell swoop Mr Wallace proved himself to be a bigot and an utter twat. A semi-literate one at that. It makes me proud to be an atheist.

Like most Peruvians, Badger is Catholic and as such does not believe in contraception - condoms are right out. He does believe in spreading HIV/Aids as rapidly as possible, filling the world with unwanted children and banning the clergy from sex so that they go half mad with frustration and start molesting children and sheep, at the same time as telling the rest of us not to have a quick naughty outside of marriage even if we are consenting adults. It makes my fur stand on end. Then again I might just be bitter and twisted because my staff won't let me near Badger's bottom these days.

Badger and I watched our first Australian Rules Football match on the telly the other day. It seems to me that the word "Rules" is a bit redundant, because as far as I could tell their weren't any. It was great fun to watch though, in a homoerotic sort of way. There were lots of scantily clad men sloshing around in the mud chasing a ball that seemed to have been coated in butter prior to the game. It was like watching a lot of grown men fighting over a bar of soap in the shower. The game itself is played on a large oval field upon which at any one time there may be a hundred or so participants, including players, umpires, trainers, doctors, physiotherapists, paramedics, helicopter evacuation crews - complete with helicopter, policemen and a drunk wearing nothing but a silly hat.

It is a hybrid of rugby, soccer, Gaelic football and gay porn. At either end of the field are four evenly spaced posts. The idea is to kick the ball (Which isn't a ball at all, but a big pointy egg.) between the middle posts, for which the successful team is awarded six points. However, if the ball misses and goes between the outer posts the umpire awards one point for trying in case the kicker gets all upset and goes home in a huff. I did actually manage to decipher one rule, that is that you can thump a member of the opposing team in the head, so hard that he has to spend the next twelve weeks sucking pureed steak and chips through a straw, and get awarded a free kick because you tripped over your victim's unconscious body. Yet if you accidentally touch an umpire's shirt you will be jailed for several years and are made to apologise to the Prime Minister for disgracing the nation.

At the end of the game the winning team has a group cuddle and sing the team song as loudly and tunelessly as possible before heading off to the showers for another game of hunt the soap. Meanwhile the losing team trudge miserably back to the changing room where they sit about the floor in various stages of undress for hours until it is safe for them to leave the stadium without getting beaten up by their own supporters. Yes, it only took one game for me to become a convert. Now, like millions of Australians, Australian Rules Football is my true religion.