With our somewhat masochistic urge to chronicle pointless and obtuse pastimes still unsatisfiable, we present more – yes, more – oddball sports from around the world. Let the stupid games begin.

Kickball: United States of America

Kickball is a mindless schoolyard game kids play in the United States and Canada at recess, lunch and gym for a few reasons.

1. The game requires little strategy, athletic ability or intelligence to play. Fat, slothful children, normally the target of derision and scorn, can excel at kickball. So for that matter, can simpletons and class idiots.

2. Kickball demands little in the way of equipment. Public schools in North America are broke. The inflatable round whoopee cushions that double as kickballs are cheap and also provide the requisite accessory for the barbaric savagery of dodgeball.

3. Physical education teachers are, contrary to popular belief, lazy. Kickball allows them to do what they do best: yell and blow whistles for no apparent reason.

The point is that once kids grow up, kickball is a sport to be left behind. More noble athletic pursuits that demand brains and brawn await. Or maybe not. Apparently, a group of nostalgic quasi-adults lost the memo about the infantile futility of kickball. So what did they do? Form an association. The World Adult Kickball Association.

With the slogan “The New American Pastime”, the WAKA has links to tournaments, rules and what else? an online store with kickball merchandise. The Association has divisions all over America and much like a virus, threatens to spread in parallel with the obesity epidemic. If you want to kill some brain cells and waste ten minutes of your life, check out the Official Rules of the Game. We will thankfully, spare you the details. Suffice to say that kickball is very real.

Bog snorkelling: Wales

Wales is a small, unusual land with a consonant-rich language, hearty folk and proud heritage. Besides a fear of vowels, the Welsh possess a wonderful, wry sense of humour. How else to explain the sport of bog snorkelling?

Events of this messy recreation compel participants to cross two lengths of a 55 m peat bog. People in Wales actually do this for fun. In flippers and snorkel gear. The penultimate competition of this muddy pastime is the World Championship, held every August Bank Holiday at the Waen Rhydd bog in Llanwrtyd Wells since 1985.

Is Wales so devoid of recreational options that they have to transform a bog, the armpit of geography, into a field of play? Snorkels were made to observe the vast kaleidoscopic world of aquatic life under sea and not for the fetid confines of a bog. Everybody knows that. Except the Welsh. Now every August, bog snorkellers receive worldwide press coverage and the tourism bureau of Wales has made the event a lynchpin in their quest to lure people to the country. They may want to re-visit that policy soon.

Cardiff, the beautiful capital city of Wales, is thanfully free of bog snorkellers. Check out deals on great hotels in the area.

Underwater hockey: United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, South Africa

Once again, the Commonwealth proves quite inventive when it comes to lunacy and sport. Underwater hockey or Octopush, is unique for many reasons, the least of which is the fact that spectator observation is virtually impossible. The key word here after all, is underwater. This is where all the action takes place. As a result, proud relations of participants have to either watch in a total state of oblivion or strap on scuba gear and head into the deep end. Believe it or not, some spectators actually opt for the latter. What choice do they have, other than to watch the match via underwater camera (which major tournaments use as a matter of fact). This is a sport?

The rules of Octopush are unimportant, quite incidental, and derive from a mad combination of water polo and hockey. What is rather curious and helps qualify the game as downright silly, if not ridiculous, is the length the sport must go to in order to accommodate officials. Big games – such as the 2008 World Championships in Durban, with attendance by at least 17 nations – have three “water refs”. These underwater referees don snorkel gear and distinctive outfits in order not to blend with players as they observe the action at the bottom of the pool. “Deck refs” sit where else, but poolside, and keep track of time, fouls, substitutions and pauses in play. Incredible.

Not to say that underwater hockey does not require athletic ability. Obviously, you have to be able to swim, rather well at that, in order to endure the underwater rigors of the game. The pioneers of the sport, back in 1954 in Portsmouth, England, were divers after all. Our point is simply that the idea of Octopush is absurd.

You know what is not absurd? Great rates on hotels in South Africa!

Photo credits: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6