You learn a lot of disturbing stuff working with Americans. Take this week. It was just an innocent question about the Food Blog (see G12). “Does anyone here eat fish tacos?” I asked. They looked stunned. “Would you normally eat it with white sauce?” They looked disgusted. It transpired that fish taco refers to the female genitalia in the US. What!!? And while we’re at it, I really didn’t need to know what tea-bagging or a Dirty Sanchez or a donkey punch is.
What beats me is how these things ever make it into the popular domain. It’s a bit like some of the sports and pastimes that are popular in Denmark, like capoeira, the Brazilian martial art dance – have you ever been to a kiddies event where they’re not beating their drums (a bit like Hare Krishna, I always think) and encouraging four-year-olds to avoid being kicked in the head?
But it’s still got a long way to go to catch Australian rules football, which is so popular here that it has its own league. Sure there might be only five teams, but that still gives it a participation rate of one in 40,000.
And they even play gaelic football, a sport that pretty much spawned Aussie rules, although there’s only one team, which kind of explains why this weekend, Copenhagen GAA is playing host to the Pan-European Gaelic Football Tournament, where 23 sides from all over the continent will gather. It’s a great excuse to get some fresh air and enjoy a uniquely Irish experience, which will mean it will probably rain, so make sure you heed the advice in this week’s Select Shopping, which is dedicated to making men look marvellous in the monsoons.
Talking of clouds, it would appear that every nuclear one has a gold, silver and bronze lining. In anticipation of a whole generation being affected by Chernobyl, Ukraine built brilliant facilities in the late 1980s and finished fourth in the medal table at the Paralympics.
Denmark finished a lowly 50th, 21 places below their position at the Olympics. Still, their Aussie rules set-up is second to none.