The Minister for Monopolies announced yesterday that he had no objection to the planned takeover of the Fermanagh hurling team by the formerly Australian, formerly American and now Chinese citizen, Mr Lu-paht Mah Dok (102). The purchase of the Fermanagh hurlers - who number only 10 - will complete Mr Mah Dok's hurling acquisitions in Ireland. He is now expected to blend hurling with the World Ploughing Championships - though of course critics insist that Fermanagh hurling already does resemble a ploughing competition.
Mr Mah Dok, who took out Chinese citizenship to join the Communist Party of China (Marxist Leninist), mandatory for those who wish to own a Chinese television station, has been amalgamating the world's sports to give them global televisual appeal. He is now the dominant world influence in Armagh road-bowling.
Following Mr Mah Dok's acquisition of the Six Counties, he took minority holdings in the Orange Order, the Ulster Unionist party and the Irish Republican Army; he then purchased the South Armagh battalion - the Manchester United of the IRA - outright, converting it to a baseball-cum-tree-logging team operating in the National Chilean League.
South Armagh surfers
Next he amalgamated road-bowling with windsurfing, thereby, despite initial difficulties - the unfortunate drowning of the team from Cullyhanna was one setback, the complete disappearance of the surfers from Bondai in South Armagh another - making a television sport popular in Malibu and Crossmaglen alike.
Following that televisual triumph, Mr Mah Dok's advisers arranged sample viewings of road-bowling in the television markets in Perth (with a composite sport blending Australian Rules and road-bowling), and Peking, where the greatest appeal was found to reside in a mixture of bowling, mah-jong and water-torture.
Mr Mah Dok's sporting interest in Ireland has certainly not abated with these developments. His worldwide television interests include some 30 24-hour sports channels beamed into virtually every country on the planet. He purchased the worldwide kneecapping franchise from both the IRA, the UDA and the UVF (which retain all local copyrights, including paperback versions of the rulebook) in exchange for an interest in the Eskimo walrus harpooning competition which, when blended with men's tennis doubles, will have its annual championship alternately in the North Belfast Leisure Centre and Anchorage, Alaska. The world kneecapping festival opens in Tokyo soon, and will be seen live on Sports Channel 14, but strictly on a pay-per-patella basis, all credit cards accepted.
Japanese highlights
Many markets have proved immune to undiluted kneecapping, but it has proved commercially viable when combined with local activities. In Picardy it has blended extremely well with lace making in which every dropped stitch is rewarded with a Magnum 45, with points awarded for presentation, speed and howls of agony. But on the other hand, kneecapping per se has been very successful in Japan, with the edited highlights at midnight - special slow-motion and freeze-frame shots from six different angles - especially popular.
It has always been Mr Mah Dok's sporting philosophy to cater for all tastes, not least because the television market is large and varied. Some sporting variations, Mr Mah Dok is the first to admit, have not been a success. The attempt to make bull-fighting popular in India, even by using lentils instead of the bull, was not a great success, and the blend of cricket and Sumo wrestling seems to have come unstuck on the no-ball rule. Similarly, an attempt to popularise women's tennis in Saudi Arabia by crossing it with a tent-making competition at midnight achieved only a partial breakthrough.
But that's the nature of this world. Many countries are infuriatingly provincial. Necklacing, for example, seems to be curiously resistant to travel from Africa; as indeed the noble sport of lynching is from the southern states of the US. And try as he may, Mr Mah Dok has been unable to interest the Swedes in the sporting splendours of electrocuting criminals - which is huge in Texas. He hopes to make it more popular in the gloomier parts of Scandinavia by blending executions with cross-country skiing, culminating in a suicide competition for losers.
On the other hand, some initiatives have been crowned with glorious success almost from the start. Following his purchase of Manchester United in 1998, the club was registered as an offshore American football club. It was required by the Nomenclaturally Genderfree Act of Congress (1999) to change its name to Personchester. The term "chest" was then declared to be offensive and sexist by the US courts as it could be seen to be a reference to the female form, so the team was renamed Personribcager United.
Soccer now extinct
Some US clubs complained then that United was a misappropriation of part of the US; the club was accordingly renamed Personribcager Together, and under that ringing title was the first team from outside the US to win the Superbowl. Soccer is, of course, now extinct in England, but an interesting hybrid between it, lacrosse and the Isle of Man TT may be seen at 4 a.m. most mornings on Sports Channel 11.
In fact, the Mah Dok televisual sports empire has been a resounding success worldwide, except in one corner of Ireland - Kildare, which alone plays the ancient Gaelic variety of football, all the others playing a hybrid which embraces snooker and Siberian mud-wrestling. But of course, following their much deserved triumph in the 1998 All-Ireland final, nothing could seduce Kildare from the path of perfection.