Simon Barnes
The year's great event takes place in Cardiff in April. In terms of exoticism, at least, there is nothing that can touch it: how could anyone match the Japanese women's rugby team? An awesome prospect, especially as New Zealand have just confirmed they will be sending a team of female All Blacks. The event is the women's rugby World Cup and there are ten acceptors thus far England, Wales, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. The organisers are hoping for two more sides, and are waiting for confirmation from France and, improbably, the Soviet Union.
One imagines that such an event must be taking place over a number of dead bodies but, in fact, I hear that the Rugby Football Union has been ``great''. The game has been growing apace from absolutely nothing: 12 teams five years ago, 92 today. Differences between the men's game and the women's game: the songs are better sung and non-smutty, and you get your hangover on Monday morning rather than Sunday. The press officer for the World Cup is called Alice Cooper: no connection, one assumes, with the singer of No More Mr Nice Guy. There will be no Australian side at the World Cup. Aussie ladies don't play. Not tough enough, I suppose.
More on exotic women, and let us turn our attention to Katarina Witt, the German skater. Exciting the passions has always been a central part of the lady's repertoire but she didn't bargain for Harry Veltman III, a 46-year-old from California. Witt is presently touring America with an ice show co-starring Brian Boitano. During her ``Springtime Ballet'' solo, Veltman III threw a bundle of letters on to the ice: bundles containing reams and reams of demented sexual ramblings. He was kept at Denver General Hospital on a ``mental health hold'' and then taken to jail.
Copyright (C) The Times, 1991
Source Citation
"Singing songs less smutty and silly; Rugby Union." Times [London, England] 12 Jan. 1991.
Saturday, 12 January 1991
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