Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Journalists delighted with cheesy headline possibilities offered by Bolt's 100m win.

by Anand Ramachandran, whose puns often reach olympian levels of cringeworthiness.

Headline writers all over the world have rejoiced at Jamaican Usain Bolt's sensational record-breaking victory at the Beijing Olympics, since it has given tham a great opportunity to come up with a range of cheesy, cringe-inducing headlines like never before.


“Hooray!”, yelled a spokesman for the Times of India, which managed to squeeze in 'Lightning Bolt' and 'Bolt and the Beautiful' in the same issue. “After John Wright left India, we've been dying for an opportunity like this!”, said a representative of The Hindu, which came up with the awfully clever 'Lightning Bolt' pun as well. “We haven't had this much fun since those idiotic Cash/Cheque puns we did during the Lendl vs. Cash Wimbledon final in 1987”, said the Indian Express guy who had the same 'Usain Bolts' idea as the hacks from the Hindustan Times.


“Journalists love it when they get a chance to make the obvious bad pun”, opined leading language specialist Nandini Reddy “ Why can't they be creative and make up better ones like 'Nuts about Bolt' or 'High-Boltage performance' ?”, she asked, more than a little sheepishly.









The ultimate sprinter? A combination of Michael Johnson and Usain Bolt may just give us the answer!


“A combination of Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson would make the ultimate sprinter – Michael Bolton! Heh heh! ”, grinned wildlife photographer S.U.Saravanakumar, thrilled at being given a chance to display his trademark wit. “Imagine him running full tilt, his long hair trailing behind him!”, added well-known musician Maarten Visser, showing that he wasn't a true Bolton fan, in which case he'd have known that the singer cut off his long locks more than a decade ago.


“I'm just glad that these idiots now have someone else's name to make silly jokes about”, said former India cricket coach John Wright. “I was getting tired of all these blade 'Wright choice', 'Wright decision', 'Exit stage Wright' nonsense in all the papers!”, he said, pronouncing the word 'blade' in a hilarious, New Zealand way, before hurriedly heading off to the nearest John.


“The two-spooned cuckoo is well rested before a half baked sunrise!”, yelled a hyperexcited Navjyot Singh Sidhu, looking around hopefully for a few laughs. “Hmmm . . maybe I should change my name to Nav-Joke ! ”, he pondered, smiling to himself.


Lu Yong, wightlifting gold medallist at the ongoing Beijing Olympics, said “Thanks to Mr.Bolt, other athletes like myself have been spared the poor humour of these journalists.” “What luck , to have avoided silly puns such as 'Yong and restless' or 'Yong-ster'!”, he added, before hurriedly heading off to the nearest Lu.


This sudden punning epidemic has apparently spread like wildfire, causing several leading laboratories to study the phenomenon to search for a cure. Scientists at the New Orleans and Pennsylvania University of Nonsense (N.O.P.U.N.) are reportedly on the point of finding a cure. “ It's only a question of analyzing the body fluids, and isolating the relevant humour.”, said a young intern, before realising what he had just said and running screaming back into the lab.


Meanwhile, the pun storm shown no signs of abating. Among the ones being currently considered by major sportswriters are “ Cricket administrators show perfect twenty-twenty vision”, “ Federer loses some of the time, but Nadal of the time”, and “To succeed against Lankan spinners, Dravid will have to Mendis ways at the crease”.


17 comments:

visesh said...

"Dravid will have to Mendis ways at the crease" - Ah kalaignar kalaignar kapathungga.

Bolts race looked more like the celebrity deathmatch between jackie chan and van damme. In a split second, jackie chan runs to the basement, opens his car, brings out a crowbar, slams van damme with it and returns the crowbar to the car before eventually returning to the ring.

Anonymous said...

I think this is one of the best posts on Bosey!

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

Too bad Akhil didn't win - we'd have been surely treated to 'Akhiller Instinct', 'Akhiller Blow' 'Go for Akhil' and other such tripe.

Wait, there's still hope!! Moldovan boxer find Akhilles Heel!

Anonymous said...

I'm now hari'ing to post this message.

Anonymous said...

I havent seen anything like how all channels were jus saying "Singh is King" when our sardar PM won the confidence vote...semma blade

Inis

Hari said...

Nice!
There was one in Deccan Chronicle, Hyderabad once. An inmate at a mental hospital raped a nurse and escaped. The headline read, "Nut screws and bolts!" By far the only decent read in that newspaper, ever.

Mahadevan said...

Our war horses had to be 'Bolted' at the stable as they could not gallop. Now our colts too are dragging their legs, may be they were Mendised. They need to be gelded before they are asked to gallop again.

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

Hari - Isn't that an urban myth? I remember hearing about that one sometime back in school. And I was in school a very long time ago ;)

Anonymous said...

nice one :-)
of course, newspapers never learn, so here's the boston globe after shawn johnson won the balance beam gold:
http://www.boston.com/sports/articles/2008/08/20/elusive_gold_has_johnson_just_beaming/

"beam"ing? ugh!!!

Anonymous said...

Thunder bolt and lightning
very very frightening

But screw all the headlines....whattttttaaaaa dude...take a bow

Inis

Anonymous said...

Surely one of the best posts. "All Hail Saravana Kumar".

Hari Shenoy said...

Yet another Hari adding onto the comment bandwagon - this is positively hilarious and funny for someone who doesn't do the 'laughing out loud' bit!

A Mendis reference appears coincidentally after a friend of mine and I designed a fraud ad campaign where Ajantha toothbrushes are relaunched in Sri Lanka and are promoted by Ajantha himself.

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

Hari Shenoy - thanks for your words. Would love to see that Mendis ad. He could do Ajantha Paaku as well!

eyefry said...

"The two-spooned cuckoo is well rested before a half baked sunrise!”, yelled a hyperexcited Navjyot Singh Sidhu, looking around hopefully for a few laughs.

He won't have to look far. ROTFLMAO.

The Mudd said...

Hilarious ! Stomach ache !
If he keeps bolting across the same way for a while papers will read "You Sane Bolt? "
N Michael Bolton.. toooo funny !
N was the John on the wright?

PS : Escoos the blade eh

Cricko said...

top notch stuff, mate!

Anand Ramachandran's Evil Twin said...

Cricko - Bavan!! Thank God - I thought someone else had usurped the domain!