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Too hot for ball games Lawrence and certainly too hot for arguing about them. Never said there was a similarity either - except they are both human activities. Mass idiocy is people killing each other, or worse, killing each other because the man above tells you to. Mass idiocy is a footballer getting 5000 a week or whatever, not someone playing football because they like it or someone watching them play football because they like it. Mass idiocy is anyone getting some ridiculous wage while others get next to nothing. And it may not be mass idiocy but it is definitely minor idiocy - someone who is able to manipulate language in an artful way thinking they are better than someone who can do amazing things with balls. I am not talking about someone personally liking or disliking any activity or not - I am talking about the way a personal preference for something is built up in the mind into something bigger - a value, a judgement etc. On 23 Jul 2014, at 13:58, Lawrence Upton wrote: > It's true that there are some whose approach to poetry is to chase round in > a narrow space trying to be more highly thought of than others; but apart > from that I cannot see a similarity between ball sports and poetry. > > (There was though a Punch cartoon of a grinning soldier running up and down > in no man's land, kicking a ball, watched by men from the trenches, one of > whom is saying to another "Lucky blighter's excused poetry" > > Not wishing to think my fellow bipeds idiots, I have been trying to see > something worth while in sport all my life and I am now in my seventh > decade. With such an accumulation of data, all negative to the proposition, > I think that proposition goes beyond prejudice. > > I charge mass idiocy > > L > > > On 23 July 2014 13:45, Tim Allen < > [log in to unmask]> wrote: > >> What's wrong with balls? Nothing wrong with balls. Balls are good for >> playing with whatever age you are. Balls are great. The world is a ball. >> Sport is very very good for health and excitement and interest. Why this >> cliched arty opposition to anything sporty. It's a prejudice just the same >> as a prejudice against poetry, for example. >> >> >> Tim A. >