Laying career on line to prove point ; First Person Ian Midgley goes to stupid lengths to demonstrate only stupid people do "planking"

I'M PROBABLY being marched out of the office right now beforebeing shot behind the skip in the car park.

The lengths I'll go to just to prove a point. The reason? Well,that's the editor's desk in the picture below.

And that's me planking on it. In a lis fetime full of stupiddecisions, this one has got to be right up there with sticking mytongue in a Spectrum 48k power pack when I was nine, and payingPounds 8 to see the new Pirates Of The Caribbean movie.

The point is: Planking is stupid. Only stupid people do it.

Nothing good can come of it. I'm laying my career on the line toprove it so you don't have to.

Now, when I'm not here next week, but sleeping with the fishes atthe bottom of the Humber, you'll know it's best to stay away fromthis inane, childish and not remotely funny internet craze.

Just look at me, I'm not laughing. Let's leave it to Australiansand professional rugby players with too much time on their hands.

I'm not going to leap to any moral high ground and startlecturing prospective plankers on health and safety issues.

The way I see it, if you're stupid enough to lay face down on topof a bedroom wardrobe, fridge, stadium dugout or shed roof, then youdeserve everything coming to you.

They started the Darwin Awards for people just like this.

If you don't know, the Darwins celebrate the most unbelievablystupid ways people have killed them selves, aiding Darwinistevolution by taking their moronic DNA out of the gene pool.

But I'm all for freedom of choice. If someone wants to balance ona garden fence for their mates to guffaw at in the locker room, thengo knock yourself out.

Literally.

I'll be right there to laugh at the ambulance as it whizzes by.

Friends of Acton Beale, the 20-year-old man who plunged to hisdeath after reportedly "planking" on a seventh-floor balcony, inBrisbane, Australia, have accused Paul Carran, the New Zealander whoclaims to have invented it in 2008, of being responsible for Beale'sdeath by promoting the craze.

No he isn't.

Beale made his own choice to balance on that balcony.

It was his own idiocy that lead to his downfall, no-one else's.

If someone else had invented the internet craze of slatheringyourself in bacon fat and sticking your head in a disgruntled lion'smouth, would the Australian have sheepishly followed that too? Whoknows? People do daft things in a needy desire to look cool.

The thing is, internet crazes are sad and passe within the blinkof an eye.

They may be vaguely amusing for an hour or two, but by the timethey've achieved mass approval they're old hat.

Once the vast majority of the general public have jumped on anypassing bandwagon, mainly because they're unable to think ofanything remotely original of their own to take part in, it'sdreary.

It's like boasting you've discovered this really cool thingcalled PacMan when everyone else has moved on to Call Of Duty 4. Ifthey're not the nadir of civilisation, then internet crazes arecertainly a step down towards its murky depths.

Who can forget the dancing baby, the fat Star Wars kid,Rickrolling and the Badger, Badger, Badger song? Oh, you alreadyhave. Many of these web "sensations" were hailed as the funniestthings ever when they landed on the our computer screens, not solong ago.

Now they're just embarrassing - banished under the table like anold farting dog at a dinner party.

I'll admit, when I was a kid I jumped on my fair share of crazes.

For about a week I was a committed skateboarder and I spent onesummer wearing fluorescent pink socks - but as I've got older, theneed to fit in or court popularity has lessened dramatically.

All of which is just as well, because when the boss sees thispicture I can guarantee that popularity is going to be the least ofmy problems.