It's even funnier if you explore the Offaly reference.
The link is that Obama's great, great, great grandfather (I hope I've counted correctly) was a shoemaker from Moneygall (population 300: even smaller than Wassila -- but without a meths problem) who emigrated about 1850. And made it.
That almost makes him a "Biffo", which is the acronym for "Big ignorant [insert Guido-type term] from Offaly". As you can appreciate, Offaly folk have an image problem similar to ours from Norfolk. "NFN" anyone?
The present Taoiseach, Brian Cowan, is also from Offaly, and so often is thus nicknamed.
I am sure you will understand how, when I saw the words "Irish lay claim to Barack Obama", that I automatically assumed this was another attempt by the FAI to bolster their international football side...
The funny thing is about the whole Normal For Norfolk phrase is that people outside of Norfolk think that we have never heard of it (witness the idiot who runs the Recess Monkey blog who genuinely believed it and wrote about it on his blog), whereas Norfolk people know the phrase and use it in its proper context, not the urban myth that has grown from it.
In Norfolk parlance, Normal For Norfolk would be to describe some unusual behaviour or something odd that would only be found locally (so we would like to believe). The other phrase that people like to use which is similar is "Norfolk does different".
There is an annual review of the year in Norfolk performed each December/January at the Norwich Playhouse performed by Carl Minns called "Normal For Norfolk", which is well worth watching.
4 comments:
It's even funnier if you explore the Offaly reference.
The link is that Obama's great, great, great grandfather (I hope I've counted correctly) was a shoemaker from Moneygall (population 300: even smaller than Wassila -- but without a meths problem) who emigrated about 1850. And made it.
That almost makes him a "Biffo", which is the acronym for "Big ignorant [insert Guido-type term] from Offaly". As you can appreciate, Offaly folk have an image problem similar to ours from Norfolk. "NFN" anyone?
The present Taoiseach, Brian Cowan, is also from Offaly, and so often is thus nicknamed.
I am sure you will understand how, when I saw the words "Irish lay claim to Barack Obama", that I automatically assumed this was another attempt by the FAI to bolster their international football side...
The funny thing is about the whole Normal For Norfolk phrase is that people outside of Norfolk think that we have never heard of it (witness the idiot who runs the Recess Monkey blog who genuinely believed it and wrote about it on his blog), whereas Norfolk people know the phrase and use it in its proper context, not the urban myth that has grown from it.
In Norfolk parlance, Normal For Norfolk would be to describe some unusual behaviour or something odd that would only be found locally (so we would like to believe). The other phrase that people like to use which is similar is "Norfolk does different".
There is an annual review of the year in Norfolk performed each December/January at the Norwich Playhouse performed by Carl Minns called "Normal For Norfolk", which is well worth watching.
LMAO ! That was incredibly funny. I saw a small 40 second clip on the BBC website earlier so its nice to see the whole thing.
Post a Comment