Comments on: Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 8 – Of Tables

By: Stas-11111

Stas-11111 — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:26:11 +0000

Thanks for article

By: Борис

Борис — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 02:41:04 +0000

Без преувеличения можно точно сказать, что пост тему раскрыл на все 100 процентов. :)

By: Pete

Pete — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:04:19 +0000

I was disappointed not to see a goatse one.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:02:01 +0000

To be fair Pete – though of course as an Olympic Avoider you would not have known this – they were asking for entries in this ‘competition’ several days ago live on air. I assume the usual channels – i.e. Blue Peter – wanted none of it.

By: Pete Baran

Pete Baran — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 06:51:49 +0000

Oh why does the BBC nick our ideas and then have nitwits actually respond. Here are fourteen BBC Online viewers designs for a flag for this Michael Phelps country… Some are staggeringly poor, some have a little flair and one appears to be the Ukrainian flag with michael Phelps on it.

By: Pete

Pete — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:52:19 +0000

India, named after Indi(r)a Ghandhi.

By: lex

lex — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:24:55 +0000

what is the only country named after its ruler?

Turkmenistan!

By: CarsmileSteve

CarsmileSteve — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:17:41 +0000

yes, most of the stuff i googled seemed to suggest it was an IOC thing, in that we are GBR and not UKI (UNK?), which i guess goes back 112 years and it’s too late to change it nao…

By: Erithian

Erithian — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:59:40 +0000

Wendy Houvenaghel, silver behind Rebecca Romero in the women’s pursuit cycling, is apparently the first Northern Irish Olympian to win a medal since Mary Peters in 1972. GB is generally considered shorthand for “Great Britain and Northern Ireland” which would be tricky to put on the tracksuits (but not that tricky).

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:45:17 +0000

Pete in a fifteen minute browse of the BBC this lunchtime I spotted two more variants on the if it were a country:

- If Britain’s cyclists were a country…

and the, erm, highly abstract

- If Team GB’s weekend were a country…

By: CarsmileSteve

CarsmileSteve — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:40:36 +0000

i understand the Americans use that version of the medal table so that they are top of it…

By: CarsmileSteve

CarsmileSteve — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:35:52 +0000

certainly one of the republic of ireland’s boxers was described as “a belfast boy” the other day, but according to the Team GB website there are only three athletes from Northern Ireland in the team…

By: vinylscot

vinylscot — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:05:09 +0000

re this Team GB nonsense. If you were of a mind to care about these things, and if you were from Northern Ireland, would you not be a bit pissed off that you had been excluded from the United Kingdom team?

I don’t know if there are any Northern Irish in the team, or reading this, but I’d be interested to hear their views, while remaining as ignorant as possible regarding the actual events in Beijing.

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:49:57 +0000

& for some reason the Americans use a different version of the medal table: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2008/medals/tracker/

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:38:09 +0000

If Michael Phelps was a country it would spoil* one of my favourite pub quiz questions: what is the only country named after its ruler?

*unless he called himself Swimistan or something.

By: byebyepride

byebyepride — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:18:39 +0000

Who is Michael Phelps? Clearly my avoidance is going better than yours!