SIMPLE-OLYMPICS 2008
the stakes were high and the risks great - nothing less than the tiltle of 'ultimate champion' and months of smug taunting or mental pain were up for grabs.
as we all know it's not the winning but the taking part that matters and so, with that in mind, i would like to wholeheartedly (and with absolutely no bitterness - yeah, right!) offer my congratulations to nikki for her sterling performance throughout the games.
it was a close competition with a good few surprise results.
below is a list of the events and the winner of that event:
'stealing the best personal item'
this event ran the full time of the olympics and consisted of us each having to take a personal item belonging to the other without it's removal being noticed until the end of the games
winner: a draw
'plaiting challenge'
20 minutes in which to make a plait made from all natural materials from our land and being at least 18 inches long and 2 inches wide.
my attempts at plaiting plaits of dry grasses didn't cut the mustard and nikki made my effort look very poor with her nettle plait.
winner: nikki
'2 deck shuffle'
we each had a randomly shuffled deck of cards to arrange into piles of each number ordered by suit and the fastest person won.
winner: nikki
'spelling test'
it wasn't looking good for the 'g' at this point when a spelling test was announced for the next round. ordinarily i would definitely fancy my chances against nikki in this area but this test included french words (and the silly accents that they insist on using!) and so i was buggered!
winner: nikki
'card tower'
a set time in which to build the highest tower of cards.
after a lot of great looking towers falling down the time finally ended with me having the tallest tower - at last some points for 'g'.
winner: gairy
'knife throwing'
as it sounds it was a simple monkey knife fight (ok, it was a throwing knife contest).
10 throws at a target with points being awared for hitting the taget and double points for hitting the bullseye.
winner: gairy
'dice curling'
this game was invented a few years ago in merribel on the kitchen worktop and basically involves a game very similar to both curling and crown green bowling but with dice and a baguette instead of stones/balls and a jack.
after a full afternoon of competitive dice curling under our belts we went head-to-head as part of the olympics.
if it had been a fair reflection on the afternoons performances it would have been much closer but in the end i came through to win 21 to 15.
winner: gairy
'word search'
as it sounds and a very nice word search it was too!
winner: gairy
'skipping'
despite a slow start and some worrying technique nikki eventually came out on top - slow and steady apparently does it!
winner: nikki
'blind challenge'
a course through which we each had to guide a blindfolded judge encountering various obstacles/tasks on the way.
points were awarded for speed as well as point deducted for mistakes.
winner: nikki
'egg whisking'
i hate whisking, always have and i don't imagine things changing any time soon!
we had to whisk egg whites until they were sufficiently whisked to enable us to hold the bowl over our heads without the egg white falling out.
my favourite part is that we get to eat the chocolate cake that is being made from the well beaten eggs after dinner - nice!
it wasn't even close with nikki winning by over 10 minutes.
winner: nikki
'raspberry challenge'
20 minutes in which to collect as many raspberries as possible. seeing as i had recently round a new and bountiful patch of raspberries nearby there was a restriction stating that we couldn't use a bike which meant that my area of collection was limited but i still managed to pull a much needed win out of the bag.
winner: gairy
'memory game'
20-ish items were placed under a towel and we both had only 10 seconds to view the items before they were covered again leaving us to name as many items as we could in 5 minutes.
it was close but in the end i took this one 13 to 12.
winner: gairy
'geographical challenge'
testing our knowledge of the local geography and our craftmenship as well as speed and attention to detail.
winner: gairy
'flower arranging'
we were given 20 minutes to scout the land and to make the nicest bouquet of flowers.
i still maintain that mine consisted of actual flowers as opposed to seed heads and grasses but my complaints fell on deaf judges ears - doh!
my (using actual flowers) attempt (and it had wilted by the time the photo was taken)
nikki's winning 'flower' arrangement
winner: nikki
'finding the crossbow bolt'
rob (with his first/last shot) managed to send the only (hand carved in walnut with a personally engineered screw-fitting steel tip with pigeon feather flights) off into the nettles ending the crossbow firing for what i thought would be a good time to come but.....the evil judges next challenge was to find the crossbow bolt.
having seen the shot fired i felt that i might have an advantage but after looking where i thought it went and finding nothing i wasn't feeling so confident but.....in the end i triumphed.
winner: gairy
'driving course'
a driving challenge which involved precision and speed testing both drivers to the limits.
apparently 11 years of driving experience didn't prepare nikki for the awesome driving superiority of my measily 6 months of limited exposure - i rock yeah!
me about to set off with my two judge companions (rob as driving judge and ali as the 'on roof' judge)
winner: gairy
'one-legged balancing'
i felt pretty confident as i heard this challenge being announced but in the end nikki's steadiness and my own lack of balance combined to give us another shock result.
winner: nikki
'photogralph competition'
this one was close.
20 minutes to take photographs which then were whittled down to our favourite three that were to be judged together.
nikki got 10 points for first place but i got second and third places meaning that there was only 1 point in it by the end.
winner: nikki
and so we reached the end of our mini olympics after many hours of laughter, faces full of nettles, surprises, accusations of cheating, taunting, failures, mocking, scandal, sportsmanship and a sniff of competitiveness at the final result.....
overall scores
nikki: 172.5
gairy: 167
aftermath
i'm reasonably sure that the mocking, smirking/cheesy grins and verbal abuse will continue for months/years to come but they were earned with sweat, blood and tears - a good time was had by all!
many thanks to rob, ali and monkey boy for organising a competition that was undoubtedly more fun, better organised, less polluted and involved less human rights violations than the official olymics in china.
congratulations again to nikki - as much as it pains me to say this - you deserved the win!
see you all back here next year (including our visiting judges/work-slaves) for the rematch.
cheers, gairy.
2 comments:
Thrilling.
I think you're on to something here, we were discussing an alternative London Olympics at the weekend but we never thought of an event where the athletes could literally end up with egg on their face.
xx
you guys really have too much time on your hands!!!No, really it all sounds like fun and I'm impresed with your pickling / jamming / storing opperations. Hope you are well, Eddie
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