Skip to main content

BEIJING OLYMPICS CHALLENGE

Can anybody name another country, apart from Brazil, where one of their Olympic competitors has a nickname deriving from a children's TV character emblazoned on the back of her shirt, rather than her real name, due to some vague-to-unidentifiable resemblance?



Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Fofão (Big Softy/Cutie, right), and a Brazilian ladies volleyball player, real name unknown (left).

Comments

Gadjo Dilo said…
We're very big on The Olympics here in the Dilo household: Mrs D. used to be an ace sprinter in her schooldays, and Nadia Comăneci still wins prizes for being The Romanian That Least Makes You Think We Are All Gypsies. We cheered a Brazilian swimmer called Cesar (...something) because he's a Caesar like we all like to think we are. I'm afraid that this Ms. Fofão slipped our attention though, sorry. Is there a Synchronised Samba event?
18 August 2008 at 19:55
No Good Boyo said…
The British equivalent would have to be called Sooty, which would rather takes us back to aspects of 1970s humour that we'd rather forget.
20 August 2008 at 05:51
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NO MORE A-CUSSIN'

In an effort to rid himself of the habit of using foul language at the slightest provocation , a Facebook chum recently asked for suggestions for harmless expressions he could use in front of his Gran and her bingo clique during moments of high stress, astonishment and/or extreme disappointment. I weighed in with, " Crikey! " and, " Great Scott! " Please feel free to add your suggestions, and help to make the world a tiny bit less like a trucker's stopover in Eindhoven .
12 comments
Read more

DON'T WORREH - BE HAPPEH

One of the things that has drawn me to admire, and at times gingerly adopt, the tenets of buddhism (a label I deride, incidentally, as to me it is less a relijurn and more a box of wise psychological tools - the allen key set of spiritualism, if you like) is the fact that, unlike other religions, it expressly forbids anger in all its forms . It seems to me that any move in this direction can only be a wise one for humankind. Imagine how many fewer high school massacres, suicide bombings, street stabbings, drunken beatings and tit-for-tat violence there would be if we could just learn to chill out , stop taking life so seriously and exercise a little patience at critical moments . As Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, " Anger obscures your mind and makes your life unhappy. Anger can cause physical harm and even endanger your life. When you are angry, you are certainly unhappy and may be afraid, and you may also cause fear and unhappiness in others. Anger can make you destructive... The pain...
7 comments
Read more

GREAT TEFL WASTERS I HAVE KNOWN - JASON

Continuing my occasional series on Great TEFL Wasters, allow me to cast my mind back to Jason, a typically chirpy Londoner I met whilst teaching in Italy. As with most London lads, he fancied himself as a bit of a player , with just fashionably long curly hair and a cocky patter that veritably flowed off the tongue. He was unique in that, during the whole time I knew him, I only ever heard him employ one adjective for a myriad of situations - the brilliantly versatile " unnatural ". When I once pointed out a rather fetching female to him in a nightclub, he whined, "Cor, strike me, that's unnatural, innit?" Another time, I invited him to stop in a bar for a coffee , to which he responded, "Coffee? Nah, I don't drink coffee, mate, it's unnatural, innit, coffee?" His profuse perspiration I'd noted on a not particularly hot day was explained away with, "Yeah, I've always sweated a lot, it's unnatural, innit?" And so it went...
4 comments
Read more