Paul Thomas: Dead ducks and rucks

Astounding news. Research conducted by a British insurance company indicates that almost a quarter of male drivers can be distracted by billboards of scantily clad women.

Not to be outdone in the believe-it-or-not stakes, a Danish survey has concluded that women who drink eight or more cups of coffee a day during pregnancy have a 59 per cent increased risk of miscarriage.

These bombshells have caused consternation here at the Moeliker Institute where our mission is to corner the market in spectacularly pointless research, preferably at taxpayers' expense.

The institute is named after legendary Dutch scientific investigator Kees Moeliker who earlier this year alerted the world to the threat posed by homosexual necrophiliac ducks.

Actually, there is just the one recorded case so far, the infamous Rotterdam mallard which did its vile thing for no fewer than 75 minutes while Moeliker looked on, recording every merciless thrust.

But in the pointless research business it is never too early to sound the alarm, and surely we all want a world that is safe for dead ducks.

Things will have come to a pretty pass if a boy duck (what we professionals in the field call a drake) can't croak without running the risk of a posthumous and protracted rogering.

The warning hasn't gone unheeded. In the Languedoc region of France, renowned for dishes such as caneton aux cerises and magret de canard, chefs are said to be keeping an eye out for low-flying mallards, fearing their kitchens might be targeted by rampant drakes hell-bent on ... well, you get the picture.

Anyway, here at the institute the pressure's on to devise even more spectacularly pointless research projects to re-establish our cutting edge credentials.

So far we've come up with:

A survey to establish whether bull-riding in rodeos during the advanced stages of pregnancy endangers the unborn child.

A research project to quantify the risk of brain damage from playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver.

An analysis of the life expectancy of suicide bombers.

I think you'll agree that the future of pointless research is in safe hands.

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Not everyone is thrilled that New Zealand has been awarded the right to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

The Japanese are hugely hosed off that they didn't get the nod.

Their take on it - that the old boys' club of the International Rugby Board missed a historic opportunity to transform rugby into a global game - is shared by most of what used to be Fleet St.

It's an indication, perhaps, that the Japanese campaign attached too much importance to taking journalists to lunch and not enough to getting into the ears of the 20-odd people who actually had a say in the matter.

Two aspects of their complaint puzzle me. First, what's the significance of 2011 in terms of this unique historic opportunity? What about 2015 or 2019?

In other words, why don't they stop whinging, absorb the lessons, and have another go?

Second, how does this going global stuff work?

Like this it seems: you stage a major sporting event in a part of the world where they're hopeless at that sport - if they play it at all - and, hey presto, everyone in the region goes nuts for it at the expense of the games they have traditionally played and followed.

So, if you were to stage the World Chess Championships in a clearing in the Papua New Guinean jungle, within a year or two the boulevards of Port Moresby and villages throughout the Pacific Islands would be teeming with nerds clutching chessboards and well-thumbed copies of the serious chess players' bible, 101 Nifty Opening Gambits? It doesn't seem all that likely, does it?

Throughout the bid process Japan's growing-the-game theme was presented as a given. It was never substantiated, quantified or developed.

Has soccer made huge strides in the US as a result of hosting the 1994 World Cup?

Or does it remain essentially a recreational activity for middle-class children with over-protective mothers and no serious sporting aspirations? It would be quite interesting to know.

Besides, rugby is already played - badly in most cases - in 115 countries.

There's no obvious benefit in it gaining a toehold in more places where culture and physique ensure that the locals will never be any good.

The idea that rugby can ever match the global reach of soccer, a game of negligible physical contact and beautiful simplicity played by normal-sized people, is demonstrably absurd.

A more pertinent strategy would be to address the problems of second-tier outfits like Ireland, Argentina and Samoa with the aim of increasing the number of countries that have a realistic chance of winning the World Cup.

A cynic would suggest that the likes of England and Australia voted for Japan not because they have an urge to grow the game in Asia but because they worry about what hosting the World Cup could do for the game here.

If Japan tries again, it should downplay the global game line and campaign on its unique positioning.

Of all the countries that play rugby and are capable of hosting a World Cup, it alone can provide what is effectively a level playing field and guarantee a financial killing.