There is a referees competition on this weekend in Wellington (at Sky Stadium apparently) where a couple of groups of Islanders will compete for a schoolteacher’s attention.

I know this from a couple of write-ups on various “news” sites.

I gave up watching schoolteachers in shorts many years ago – even the hilarious wanes over time. (Watch a Richard Briers Comedy now and you’ll see what I mean.)

I won’t watch this competition mainly because a winner is declared at fulltime – just like the sex of a baby is “declared” at birth.

Unfortunately I’ve seen the names of the “combatants”, one represents a city that is the only place I have ever been assaulted in the street in New Zealand**, the other the best place for NZ to place an unreliable nuclear reactor. I hope both teams lose.

In New Zealand we used to play rugby. Whatever happened to that?

** A bunch of, I think, Samoans in Aro Street. At the time I took steps to remediate the situation: Bloody great long ones. I ran all the way UP Adams Terrace.