I have long maintained that almost all sports are fixed with the obvious exception of professional wrestling. Today Italy agrees. Usually the trick is working out why games are rigged as they are. Who really wins? Who really loses? I have little experience with American sports but the recent loss of the LA Lakers in the NBA to the unfancied Pistons proves the point. The Lakers hegemony had to be broken for the good of the game and the only way that could happen was by Detriot winning. I sincerely believe that most sport is fixed. I challenge anyone to find a case where this is not true. And don't even get me started on the worst of all, the Olympics.

But I disgress. This Friday marks the end of JC's school year. As is tradition here in HK, teachers feel they don't need to teach every day so they use holidays as a good excuse to ask the class parents to organise events instead. It has fallen to Mrs M to organise the end of school party. She has dutifully bought the requisite trinckets as gifts for the kids. She's planning on a game of pass-the-parcel. And it is here that the kids will first taste the bitterness that is rigged sports. The trinckets for the girls are purses of various colours. I humbly suggested to Mrs M as she was wrapping the parcel that she remembers where she puts the pink one, and make sure that it lands on JC when it is the appropriate time. Imagine JC's delight. Imagine the disappointment of the other girls in the class stuck with purple or worse, blue.

Tomorrow the kids will learn an important lesson. It is who you know, not what you know.