Crazy, dangerous planking fad hits home

Editorial
May 23, 2011

Apparently, in exchange for 10 minutes of cyber fame, there is a generation of Kiwis out there prepared to plank just about anywhere. QUESTION: Are people getting sillier and sillier with every passing year?
Answer: Read this and make up your own mind.
The latest craze that has now, unfortunately, arrived on our shores is a crazy, life-threatening, meaningless, time-wasting exercise known as planking.
Believe it or not, it involves no more skill than being photographed laying flat and face down in a "precarious and novel spot".
The images are then posted on time-wasting online sites such as Facebook for other people, with far too much time on their hands, to giggle at.
Sad, sad, sad.
The worst part is this fad has already cost one young Australian his life.
Acton Beale, 20, planked on a narrow balcony railing, slipping off and falling several storeys to his death.
Australian police, no doubt tired of having to deal with the aftermath of acts of stupidity, issued a warning that, as planking becomes more and more competitive, those with an IQ low enough to practise it will end up taking greater and greater risks.
On that basis they will plank on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, from the roof of the Opera House at Bennalong Point or stretched along the full length of a giant crocodile at Taronga Zoo.
The worst part is that experts in time-wasting, dangerous frivolity are predicting it is only a matter of time before planking becomes hugely popular in New Zealand.
Apparently, in exchange for 10 minutes of cyber fame, there is a generation of Kiwis out there prepared to plank just about anywhere, including the floor of public toilets and on locations such as pedestrian crossings.
Oh, to be a euclid driver now that winter's here.
So is this ridiculous practice, sure to cause some parents immeasurable grief sooner or later as they bury their young dead, any worse than what has gone before?
Well, it seems to me to be quite a sizeable chunk more dangerous than the hula-hoop, playing knucklebones or trying to solve the puzzle of Rubik's cube.
I would put it more in the league of using dynamite to catch trout, or playing Russian roulette.
But then again I suppose those two pastimes had their adherents and probably still do.
So, if you are determined to lead a short life, but a merry one ( to use a famous line from Kelly Gang history) then take up all of the above with the exception, of course, of the hula-hoop, knucklebones and Rubik's cube.
Perhaps you could plank by the side of a stream, clutching a stick of dynamite and holding a loaded gun to your head.