Brockian Ultra-
Cricket
Although it has been said that on
Earth alone in our Galaxy is Krikkit (or
cricket) treated as fit subject for a
game, and that for this reason the
Earth has been shunned, this does only apply to our Galaxy, and more specifically to our dimension. In some of the higher dimensions they feel they can more or less please themselves, and have been playing a peculiar
game called Brockian Ultra-
Cricket for whatever their transdimensional equivalent of billions of years is.
Lets be blunt, it's a nasty
game, but anyone who has been to the higher dimensions will know that they're a pretty nasty heathen lot up there who should just be smashed and done in, and would be, too, if anyone could work out a way of firing missiles at right-angles to reality.
The rules to the
game of Brockian Ultra-
cricket, as played in the higher dimensions are strange and inexplicable. A full set of the rules is so massively complicated that the only time they were all bound together to form a single volume, they underwent gravitational collapse and became a black hole.
A brief summary, however, is as follows:
Rule One:
Grow at least three extra legs. You won't need them, but it keeps the crowds amused.
Rule Two:
Find one good Brockian Ultra-Cricket player and clone him off a few times. This saves an enormous amount of tedious selection and training.
Rule Three:
Put your team and the opposing team in a large field and build a
high wall round them.
The reason for this is that, though the
game is a major spectator sport, the frustration experienced by the audience at not actually being able to see what's going on leads them to imagine that it's a lot more exciting than it actually is. A crowd that has just watched a rather humdrum
game experiences far less life-affirmation than a crowd that believes it has just missed the most dramatic event in sporting history.
Rule Four:
Throw lots of assorted items of sporting equipment over the walls for the players. Anything will do - cricket bats, basecube bats, tennis guns, skis, anything you can get a good swing with.
Rule five:
The players should now lay about themselves for all they are worth with whatever they find to hand. Whenever a player scores a 'hit' on another player, he should immediately run away and apologize from a safe distance.
Apologies should be concise, sincere and, for maximum clarity and points, delivered through a megaphone.
Rule Six:
The winning team shall be the first team that wins.
Curiously enough, the more the obsession with the
game grows in the higher dimensions, the less it is actually played, since most of the competing teams are now in a state of permanent warfare with each other over the interpretation of these rules. This is all for the best, because in the long run a good solid war is less psychologically damaging than protacted
game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket
-- Douglas Adams
