Is nothing sacrosanct any more?
Rugby league's bizarre plan to play a test in Turkey in 2015 to mark 100 years since Gallipoli should immediately be filed in the too-silly basket.
Many have concentrated on the travel demands on players, the problems finding a window within the NRL season, and the question of whether enough supporters could be on hand to fill the ground.
Talk about focusing on the minor issues.
There is really nothing particularly appropriate about holding a sports game to "celebrate" a wartime event that caused thousands of young lives to be lost.
People are talking about it being an "occasion". Someone wrote on Twitter the game "would rock".
Please, let's not turn such a deeply important but sad day as April 25 into a Hallmark moment.
• ...is a turkey
League has embraced the Anzac link, looking for similarities - camaraderie, sacrifice and so on - between war and a brutal sport.
But it must end there.
I went to Waitaki Boys', the high school that arguably marks Anzac Day more fervently than any other. Once a year we sat and listened while a teacher solemnly read out every single name of the hundreds of old boys killed in war.
That's what April 25 means to me. It does not, and will never, mean a chance to play sport.
We are in danger of producing a generation of people who think "Anzac" means a game of rugby league.
What's next? The All Blacks playing at Passchendaele? The Silver Ferns at El Alamein?
• Fear the Kangaroo
As I write this, I don't know if the Kiwis beat the Kangaroos last night.
But I can say, with some conviction, the Kiwis won the haka.
This wouldn't have been so easy to predict had the Kangaroos continued to do their own war dance.
Performed overseas between 1908 and 1967, the indigenous chant - or at least the English version - finishes with the lines:
"The Kangaroo is dangerous when at bay.
"Come on. Come on, Death."
Exactly.
• The elite eight
Continuing my bid to become even more unpopular in club rugby circles than Paul Dwyer, our acerbic columnist, I will make my stance on the big issue clear.
There are too many teams in the Dunedin premier competition.
This is nothing personal against Zingari, or against Green Island, or against University A (which might be a relegation candidate under my proposed system).
I simply think it has been a long time since the city was capable of fielding 10 premier-quality teams.
Reducing the teams will not reduce the pool of quality players in Otago. It will actually strengthen and balance the competition.
You can't make a decision during a season, so make 2012 the last with 10 teams. Bottom two get relegated for 2013. And give the teams in a rejigged, stronger second division a clear path to play their way back into premier ranks if they are good enough.
• Handy Manny
I was a late convert to boxing, so I missed the great era of Ali-Frazier-Foreman, I missed the Sugar Rays and Duran, and I missed the early Mike Tyson.
David Tua was my introduction to the sweet science, back when he was on the way up and his ability to knock opponents out with a blazing flurry of punches hid his poor conditioning, his one-dimensional ability and his ridiculous hair.
Finally, I have found my Muhammad Ali.
Emmanuel Dapidran "Manny" Pacquiao. Filipino fighter and politician. Ten-time world champion across eight weight divisions. The prince of pugilism.
Watching Pacquiao in action is like watching a great artist at his peak.
He steps, jabs, ducks, dives, weaves, hooks, shifts and strikes and does everything at a million miles an hour.
He's a superstar, one of the most electrifying sportsmen I've seen in years. Tomorrow, he gets an opportunity to add to his legacy with a win over the ageing Shane Mosley.
• Anna McThomas
Remember Anna Thomas, the outstanding Otago diver?
She had a top-10 finish at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 and was 16th in the world the following year.
Thomas now lives in Edinburgh with her partner, former Olympic swimmer Jonathan Duncan, and she works for a company that organises marathons.
Her grandfather, Dunedin man Bill Lennox, contacted us this week to pass on the news that Thomas had been selected for Scotland to play at the Touch World Cup in Edinburgh.
