In a turn of events so pathetically French it could only end in tears and a government inquiry, a 68-year-old pétanque player has shuffled off this mortal coil after taking a direct hit to the noggin from a regulation metal boule. The BBC reports, with the gravity of a eulogy at a funeral for common sense, that the incident occurred in the Dordogne and has ‘forced’ the British government to order a ‘sporting safety review’.
Let that sink in. A game involving geriatrics tossing lead balls at each other’s feet finally produces a fatality, and the British response is to convene a committee. Because nothing says ‘we’re concerned’ like a review board composed of people who’ve never held a boule in their lives, unless you count the canapés at the embassy reception.
The deceased, whose name the French press is mercifully keeping out of the headlines to protect his family from the shame of being killed by a metaphor for their national decline, was reportedly ‘struck square on the temple’ during a friendly match. The boule, a 750-gram sphere of metal and malice, apparently slipped from a teammate’s hand and took the old boy out like a sniper’s bullet. Or, as the local gendarme put it, ‘C’est la vie, mais aussi la mort.’
This has, naturally, provoked a wave of hysterical hand-wringing in Whitehall. A spokesperson for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport solemnly declared, ‘We take the safety of all British citizens, even those engaged in ludicrous Gallic pastimes very seriously. A full review of the sporting safety guidelines for pétanque, boules, and possibly also frisbee golf, will be conducted forthwith.’
I can already see the report: 400 pages of recommendations that boil down to ‘wear a helmet,’ ‘install foam padding on the boules,’ and ‘ban the French from playing outdoors.’ The real tragedy here is that we’re spending tax money on this when there are actual boules in the form of legislative hand grenades being tossed around the House of Commons.
But let’s not ignore the elephant in the room, or rather, the elephant wounded by a pétanque ball: the sheer absurdity of a game where the objective is to toss a metal ball as close to a smaller wooden ball while simultaneously trying to dislodge your opponent’s balls. It’s a sport designed by a nation that surrendered to the concept of competitive lawn bowling. And now, after decades of boozy afternoons in village squares, the boule has finally tasted blood.
I can only imagine the commentary from the safety review panel. ‘We recommend mandatory pre-match neurological assessments for all players over 65.’ ‘All boules must be made of recycled yogurt pots.’ ‘A three-metre exclusion zone around each thrower.’ The result will be a sport so sterilised it becomes a game of gentle underarm rolls, like a granny’s version of curling without the ice or the excitement.
Meanwhile, in France, they’re probably holding a minute’s silence before the next match, followed by a robust French shrug and a game of ‘who can bounce a boule off a baguette.’ But here in Britain, we must treat this as a national crisis. After all, if a 68-year-old can die playing pétanque, what’s next? A stabbing during a game of tiddlywinks? A fatal frisbee accident at a barbecue? The safety review will surely expand to cover all sports involving airborne projectiles, including paper aeroplanes in the office.
I propose a more sensible solution: maybe we should let the French sort out their own problems. They have a word for this: ‘la fatalité.’ It means fate, but also the acceptance that sometimes you get bonked on the head by a metal ball and that’s that. It’s a philosophy we could learn from, instead of commissioning a report that will sit on a shelf gathering dust while the next pétanque player dons his protective headgear and waits for the inevitable.
But no, we must have a review. We must have recommendations. We must have an official certification from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. And in the end, the only thing that will truly be protected is the jobs of the people who write these reviews. Because if a man can be killed by a game he played for 50 years without incident, perhaps the real danger is not the boule but the spectacular bureaucratic overreaction that follows.
As for me, I’m off to play a game of lawn darts. Living dangerously, one absurd sport at a time.
