h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seriously, five guys sitting around with a load of beer in front of the big screen tv for the biggest game in Canadian football and they spend a huge part of the time talking about ...








Art, art galleries and architecture.



And then came the last quarter!

What an unbelievable (though unsuccessful) come back, Winnipeg!




And then about three minutes left one of the kids starts up playing The Entertainer on the piano. Very loudly.


Another fine neighbourhood get together!

Sounds like a fun time. We had some friends over yesterday too (although not for the football, I'm afriad. ). Good company makes the world go round.

Sounds good.

(But if I'm honest some kid starting up with the piano..a few minutes from the end of a footie match would have annoyed )

Takes all sorts though...and I like that you really like the way you do it with your mob.

The kid on the piano was *really* good.

All the more annoying then to be drawn into something quality..

To be slightly serious though, for me it's about kids learning to respect elders' rituals.

If I was sitting watching a big match with mates I'm pretty sure I'd be more interested than you and maybe your mates in the actual thing as 'sport'. And just before the end, if its close is very important for me because of the drama.

But yeah it isn't a deal for you. We're very different about that.

Hilight reel: http://www.cfl.ca/video/index/id/22611

Yes bring on the kids playing at every opportunity

What a weird cultural construction...

That is more US than US. I've watched a few American football things...but that is pure pantomime

I'm getting an inkling of your version of Thanksgiving...complicated

I like it.

(Actually, the kids had adult permission to start playing the piano)


You know, don't you, that U.S. Thanksgiving comes about a month after the Canadian holiday?


And, as for this football thing, from things I've read, Canadian and American football, although superficially similar (identical) evolved independently from an obscure and forgotten common root sport and each has its own startling and mildly arbitrary rules which seem to have been made up on various playing fields in the early days and retained as teams from different cities met to play. Perhaps the most obvious result of some of these rule differences when watching the games is the degree of long passes attempted in Canadian football versus the short advances in the U.S. leagues. Also, players in the U.S. tend to be large and immovable while the Canadian league has smaller, faster, more mobile players.



And, the competition for the Grey Cup has been going on longer than that other sporting event, the popmpously named 'World' Cup.

And the old trophy has seen some wonderful moments, often involving Edmonton:

'The trophy was broken in 1978 when Tom Wilkinson and Danny Kepley dropped it, and in 1987 when a celebrating Edmonton Eskimos player sat on it. It was again broken in 1993 when it was head-butted by Edmonton's Blake Dermott.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Cup









We may look alike from a distance, but so do a cobra and a worm.

The kids had permission...wouldn't happen here if an important sporting events was on.

People are either too middle class to be into football, or if watched it would be a proper serious ritual to be respected.

**

It's interesting about the evolution of football and the way it diverged here into Association football (Soccer), and Rugby football (Union and League).

That actual presentation online you linked to was truly incredible for me in the way 'framed' on the website...also tone of voiceover....It didn't seem to have any connection to my concept of sport, but to be *entirely* presented as a *product* to be sold, to do with advertising.

Of course we have that here as well now in reality. But still there are rules about presentation on telly, as its so very tribal still, and an outlet for an expression for a heck of a lot of male aggression. You don't get a 'family' thing really to do with football.

Well you do...but it's essentially still a male tribal thing. I think you would be shocked to visit a professional football match here and listen to the language used for 90 minutes. And in my local pub the atmosphere when an England match is on.

And the one thing you would be ostracised for life for here amongst real footie fans would be to watch a match eating a prawn sandwich.

**

I don't understand the difference between Canadian and US Thanksgiving. And you are the first to tell me they are on different days. Actually to be brutally frank I don't understand anything about Thanksgiving.

You mentioned somewhere else about 'Harvest Festival'. Our essentially religious/church festival for that happens in September.

You see, we have our harvest festival a month earlier than those others because by the time they get around to harvesting we've already got snow on the ground.

Thanksgiving is all about the harvest in Canada. In the USA it seems to be about the natives saving the Puritans and a way to squeeze a few more bucks (got the pun) out of the people.

The Grey Cup is a whole different ball of carnauba. People roamed the streets here (we were the host to the event) in uniforms from _all_ the teams- even the now defunct US teams! Lots of tourists, happy drunk revelers and vuvuzelas (along with drums, trumpets and a tuba). Everyone who knows the CFL knew there wouldn't be a riot a la the NHL. It's a whole different demographic.

A funny thing about the little annual event we had here last night (it's called a Grey Cup party but it's really just an excuse to get a six foot long submarine sandwich and have friends come over to gab) is that everybody thought the Ottawa Rough Riders were still in the league. We were amused by that wacky Canadian thing of having two teams in the league with the same name and now I'm more amused by the fact that we were so unaware of things that we didn't realize they folded 15 years ago.

I did mention we (school teacher, three guys in construction, and I) spent a long time during the third quarter talking about art, art galleries and architecture, didn't I?

What I like about this 'Grey Cup' concept....(dig the name ) is that you found a weird way of bringing sport and art together.

Even that link that anhaga sent me about the actual *match*...seemed a pantomime parody of American football...

It's clever.

You have an interesting culture

(Our family came so close to moving there..(I sometimes think I kept a little bit of Candadian here ).

'seemed a pantomime parody of American football'

No.


Theirs is a pantomime parody of our football.

Everything's a ing parody and sick joke.

I'm giving up on ASK entirely now.

Just journals and message threads from now on.