Abstruse winter sports - your questions answered
February 18, 2010 6:55 AM   Subscribe

Scotland's finest satirical website The Daily Mash reports on the Winter Olympics
posted by MajorDundee (19 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Skrnsson finished the course in a time of 16 hours, 28 seconds and 14 trees, just two-one hundredths of a tree ahead of Swedish rival Grunter Halbordshmardonson.

It completed a day of mixed fortunes for the Finns after Hedia Trykkso and Bippi Hylvs were disqualified from the Chamsark Ice Fluting after a flagrant triple byerk.


Then it goes on with the same theme for a few more paragraphs-- fake Nordic, Finnish and Germanic words and names. That's the joke. Oof. IKEA product names are funnier than that.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:07 AM on February 18, 2010


They also ran this today. I somehow doubt it really is Scotland's finest satirical website.
posted by permafrost at 7:11 AM on February 18, 2010


It definitely had its moments. Naming one event 'Endurance Husky Freggling' was good.
posted by Hardcore Poser at 7:20 AM on February 18, 2010


This obviously doesn't travel well across the Atlantic - the joke isn't the names.
posted by MajorDundee at 7:22 AM on February 18, 2010


Humour to laugh about, there is never enough of that about.
posted by ijsbrand at 7:28 AM on February 18, 2010


When the Daily Mash is good, it's very good.

But if there's a joke of any sort in this Winter Olympics piece, it's way over my head.
posted by motty at 7:31 AM on February 18, 2010


Oh yes.

Sarah Palin, led to the stage in a children's dress...

The joke about the Olympics, it seems to me, is the pole-centric nature of the Winter Olympics. For the same reason, the Jamaican bobsledders were awesome underdogs.
posted by Xoebe at 7:42 AM on February 18, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oh come on! How is donkeys on ice not funny?
posted by oddman at 7:53 AM on February 18, 2010


When they're on top of you?
posted by i_cola at 8:02 AM on February 18, 2010


The Onion has a similar series of articles.

I don't get the theme. Are the winter Olympics seen as bizarre or incomprehensible to many people? They seem somewhat focused on the biathlon, which is strange, since that event is more grounded in reality than most sports.
posted by CaseyB at 8:38 AM on February 18, 2010


Skrnsson finished the course in a time of 16 hours, 28 seconds and 14 trees, just two-one hundredths of a tree ahead of Swedish rival Grunter Halbordshmardonson.

fake Nordic, Finnish and Germanic words and names. That's the joke.

Did you even read your own quote?
posted by DU at 9:09 AM on February 18, 2010


I liked it!
posted by ObscureReferenceMan at 9:12 AM on February 18, 2010


This obviously doesn't travel well across the Atlantic - the joke isn't the names.

Then what is it?
posted by ssg at 9:44 AM on February 18, 2010


I work with a number of Finnish people, usually remotely. I always like to know the gender of the person I am going to be talking with but I find it hard to infer from these names. My secret is Flickr: for example "Aatu" vs "Aino". The dreaded result is getting a search which returns entirely pictures of pets.
posted by rongorongo at 9:48 AM on February 18, 2010



Scotland manager Craig Levein was less optimistic after his side were drawn against reigning champions Spain. He said: "If we had to play children's TV characters I'm pretty sure England would get Iggle Piggle and we'd get Optimus Prime in a fucking Brazil shirt."

I will say only one thing about this site. This is funny.
posted by marmaduke_yaverland at 11:07 AM on February 18, 2010 [2 favorites]


A legendary quest by an Inuit hero who has to draw on all his skills to restore light and peace to his dark and troubled world. The BBC Winter Olympics 2010.
posted by netbros at 12:16 PM on February 18, 2010




The joke about the Olympics, it seems to me, is the pole-centric nature of the Winter Olympics. and Are the winter Olympics seen as bizarre or incomprehensible to many people?

Hurrah! Some people get it. The thing is that to many people in the UK the Winter Olympic Games feature abstruse and esoteric sports akin to Polo or Lacrosse (or baseball or American football, come to that - heh). We do not have the climate here - apart from bits of Scotland - to encourage mass participation in winter sports. I mean every time it snows here there's a national panic. This piece is therefore what we call a "piss take" on this side of the pond. The names merely highlight what is, to many of us, the arcane, bizarre obscurity of the whole expensive thing.
posted by MajorDundee at 2:06 AM on February 19, 2010 [1 favorite]


I thought it was funny. Growing up and living in arid central Arizona and never particularly enjoying snow, winter sports are particularly impenetrable to me. What is all that curling about anyway? Doesn't Scotland have some responsibility for that strange winter pastime?
posted by Barry B. Palindromer at 2:54 PM on February 19, 2010


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