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on Oprah one year. I saw a segment of the show and Oprah was quite beside herself with him and more importantly the clip they borrowed from the show which sees Mr. Darcy plunge into a lake with his flouncy white shirt. There was a glint in Oprah's eyes and in the eyes of every woman in the room. It was the same one in my wife's eyes when she and I watched "Pride and Prejudice" together, especially in the previous scenes when Mr. Darcy is wearing a similar shirt in dueling practice and working up quite a sweat. That's right, dueling is not only good exercise - if you win - it's also sexy.

Surely not you gasp in horror. Oh it is indeed true, as one of my former countrymen proved in 2000. That's right, "Are you not entertained?" bayed Russell Crowe's Maximus to the crowd in Gladiator, rather ironically. For indeed we were, and the dueling General who became a hero to Rome won an Oscar and proved that dueling was quite a sexy sport. I saw the glint again in my wife's eye, and Russell and I share a very similar accent.

Think of the benefits to business and say the current election campaign if squabbles and disputes could be settled in a more direct and gentlemanly, or womanly, way. None of the nasty threats of litigation, petty taunts and back stabbing we're so fond of today. Imagine the evaporation of meaningless spittle if the candidates had to actually back the fighting talk with real fighting. Then we'd all know who the better candidate was, one who was prepared to actually back the rhetoric with action, not just promises or words from an ensemble of legally trained mumbo jumbo conjurers.

Unequivocally, the reinstatement of dueling as a mechanism for solving disputes would benefit modern societies, even at the international level. I would prefer swords, since it evokes the image of knights more towards the Elizabethan age where thinking and speaking were just as important as smashing skulls with a broadsword. However, I would certainly feel comfortable with one of those delightful ancient pistols which were just as likely to explode in your face. The rigor attached to the whole procedure, decency and appropriateness, accountability and sensibility, are all things sadly missing from our so called modern societies and sadly not for the better.

Learn more about this author, Nathan Hook.
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