You did read the wonderful article by Virin Gomber, didn’t you? Of course you did! It introduced yet another Kiwi world star, South Auckland’s Nick Liefting, who is the new World Electric Fencing Champion. But wait… there’s more.

Although he was not the New Zealand champion, the sponsors were impressed enough to invite him to the worlds. He was the ‘oldest’ (read ‘experienced’) competitor. Great stuff Nick.

As a mere broth of a boy, I attended a party. Country people sure know how to have fun. There was a small discrepancy between over-watered lads and sources of ablution. Fortunately, you can do the ‘relief’ thing anywhere, in the country.

Townie lads have adopted this practice, in mostly unsuitable city places. On this auspicious occasion, the ‘call of nature’ had reached ‘priority’ point. Apparently it is the only time when boys, go to the bathroom in groups. Hmmm. Yes.

We went around the back, beside, a low fence thingie. One of we four was a Townie. The wickedest Rural loudly issued a challenge to us all. ‘Stand but a yard (this was the pre-metric era) from the fence’, he declared.

‘The ‘aim’ of the exercise, is to hit the wire’, he explained. Our Townie was heard to say, ‘It’s not a very strong fence. How does that stop the cows from entering the garden?’ Our leader told him not to mind such detail and, because he was the clever  ‘city slicker’, he could go first.

Even though I was at shall we say, ‘bursting point’ muhself (that’s country talk, folks), I forgot the reason for being there in the first place, because suddenly there was an exciting new purpose. Oh yes.

He hesitated for a moment about a certain, you know… exposure. We assured him that all the animals on the land are mostly naked, often including human animals. He moved into position. He was starting to become, um… ‘cocky’? Here’s the thing…

Sometimes, ‘excellence’ can hurt you. Remember that. With accuracy that took our breath away (before sustained, doubled-up guffawing took away the rest) he hit the wire at first stream. I learnt much that evening. For starters, man’s cruelty to man, was on its best display.

It was confirmed that, when boys are in a ‘dare’ mode, only a village idiot goes first. I couple that with the understanding that your best defence, if people start to hint that you should go first, is to mock the originator of the ‘dare’ and call him a ‘sissy’ if he declines (well, we didn’t have any ‘bad’ words then!).

Although physics was never a biggie for me, this experiment made true the fact that electricity will travel through water, and that it will remain harmless until it reaches some end point, when it can turn, shall we say, ‘unnice’.

That night, I also learnt that under the right circumstances, an untrained singer can scream louder than the noisiest rock singer and that people often have more fun watching suffering than having fun. I don’t know what became of that Townie, but I was relieved to know that adoption… was an option.