Read all about it!

[nineveh_uk]

Hard as it is to beat the headline seen on a newsboard in Bridlington "Horse Fetish Flashed in Court"* for headline of the week, the Iceland Review managed it with Seven-Year-Old Wins Iceland Ram Groping Contest. Even better, this story really is about a seven year-old who won the amateur section of a ram groping contest - prizes include (ram) sperm from the Insemination Center of West Iceland. Despite said prizes, I assume that groping is a mistranslation of a word/phrase about judging the quality of rams. Anyone can read Icelandic and would be good enough to tell me what was actually meant by groping and how the error, er, arose, the source is here.

The competition involves laypersons attempting to rank rams that have been ranked by professional ram-rankers, and explaining why. Says the organiser:

“One year a contestant was able to rank the rams correctly and described them all in a poem. That was very interesting.” Evidently there isn't much to do in Iceland in summer.

*Which turned out to be a mis-print for "Horse Fetish Flaster in Court", and is unfortunately a rather more sad and less funny story than one might have hoped for.

Comments

[antisoppist]

I can't read enough Icelandic to understand anything other than there was a good atmosphere and I might be wrong about that. It sounds unlike any agricultural show I have ever been to if they are judging the judges rather than the animals.

[nineveh_uk]

Damn. You were my best hope. If only I had taken the old Icelandic paper at university, I would at least had a dictionary - and more importantly, would not have done the Romantics, which I loathed.

[ellen_fremedon]

I just spent way, way too long translating the article, and while it does not go into any detail about how the ram-groping is done, my dictionary avers that þukla means "to feel" or even "to finger."

So, yeah. Groping.

There doesn't seem to be any information in the original article that wasn't in the (somewhat expanded) translation, unless it is conveyed by í kramið, which I cannot parse at all. (Or, I can't make out kramið as anything but the perfect participle of kremja, "to crush," which doesn't make any sense in context.)

[antisoppist]

From Swedish/Norwegian/Danish I was guessing that as "hugging" but it's probably better that it isn't.

[nineveh_uk]

Now that's dedication to the cause, thank you! It is all very, very strange...

[azdak]

While I feel sorry for the horse fetish flasher, I wish I had confidence in the judge's evident belief that a three year community order will suffice to sort out his "sexual offending problems", espceially given that he tried to grab the woman, so apparently had rather more in mind than a quick flash.

Also, apropos the current discussions of how to deal with unwanted sexual attention, I note that the poor woman felt that she had somehow brought it on herself by being so sluttish as to say "Hello" to him. Twice. After all, it's mixed signals like this that make it so hard to distinguish legitimate rape from the other sort.

[nineveh_uk]

I thought the sentence sounded a bit feeble, given that the man doesn't exactly sound mentally capble of "confronting" his problems on his own. But having looked it up, the critical point not explained by the paper is that being unfit to plead affects the sentencing options, e.g. he doesn't have the option of a fine. The community order includes a requirement for compulsary mental health treatment, but conducted in the community, rather than compulsary detention in hospital, so more than a slap on the wrist - and given the chronic under-funding of mental hospitals, I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't more effective.

Re. current discussions, as someone says on the LJ crosspost the paper's use of "admitted" is not a good choice - with that replaced with something more neutral like "stated", I think the woman's account becomes more simply discriptive and less-self-blaming ("I said hello, like you do" rather than "I said hello, I shouldn't have").

I would say that it is gratifying to have been proved right over recent years that George Galloway is an egomaniacal scumbag, but alas it isn't gratifying enough.

[azdak]

being unfit to plead affects the sentencing options

Okay, this is interesting stuff to know and makes me feel a lot better about the sentence! You're right about "admitted" as well - I shall now mosey over to the LJ crosspost and read all the sensible things peope have said there.

"I said hello, like you do"

I am now imagining Emma Wodehouse as the victim, making mincemeat in court of the judge and the flasher ("Well, of course I said hello, but it is hardly my fault if the gentleman mistakes common civility for an invitation to sexual congress")

[nineveh_uk]

Emma Wodehouse vs the flasher - Emma Wodehouse vs. anyone - would be brilliant. Do you think the Readercon Pest would have got the message had his victims responded with "You are mistaken, sir, if you think thus to recommend yourself to me. Kindly remove yourself from my presence, and refrain from such imposition henceforth." Probably not.

[azdak]

I believe accompanied by Emma's steely eye and absolute conviction of her own superiority, it would have worked. The wonderful thing about Emma is that even when trapped in a carriage with a man attempting to demonstrate how ardently he admires and loves her, it never occurs to her to feel anything but indignation. The Readercon Pest wouldn't have stood a chance.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

My father once won £100 worth of bull semen in a dairy competition. My mother and I found it hilarious. Oddly, he didn't.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

May I tentatively enquire what he did with his prize?

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Well, I never asked but I presume he used it to inseminate some of the cattle.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

It did not sit in pride of place on the mantelpiece or even the downstairs loo.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It would be a change from the standard downstairs loo decor, which I believe to be an Oscar, should one possess such a thing.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I sincerely hope the contestant who wrote the poem (as well as ranking the rams correctly) won. There is no justice otherwise.

Ram sperm seems like a slightly unfortunate prize for anyone who doesn't have a ewe on hand (if they're laypersons, I imagine not all of them will). One hopes that the judges take this into account when deciding what prizes to award.

I saw nothing like this when I was in Reykjavik. A trip around more rural parts of Iceland is clearly in order, as it sounds amazing.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The poet definitely deserves a prize - and presumably as he ranked the rams correctly as well, he got something. Though hopefully not ram sperm unless it was of use to him. Mind you, as a child my mother won a pig at ninepins and was not allowed to take it home.

I would like to go back to Iceland, but I am not sure that I would take in the Sheep Farming Museum on my trip.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Did she get another prize in lieu of the pig, or did she leave empty-handed?

If this contest is really "the highlight of the summer", perhaps best not.

That other article is, as you say, rather sad - an IQ of 60 is very low, and the man in question doesn't sound completely with-it. The newspaper's phrasing raised my hackles here, also: "The woman rider admitted she said hello to him twice at separate points on her ride out before returning home to her stable". Admitted?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think the pig was the only prize, beyond the satisfaction.

I agree entirely about the newspaper's phrasing. The man's case is sad, but the woman has had a very nasty experience, and "admitted", as the paper's angle on things, feels like a telling choice of phrase. Heaven forfend, she said hello! Why not something neutral like "stated" or "described"? There's nothing in her later-quoted statement that implies she feels responsible, so why imply it, except that assuming the woman is responsible is standard procedure.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

The competition involves laypersons attempting to rank rams that have been ranked by professional ram-rankers

Bizarrely, there was a similar event on ridiculous reality show Sorority Girls. Though that was potential recruits rather than rams.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask how far the TV event was hands on?

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

There was no actual groping. One girl did lick her own elbow, but that was in an earlier episode.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I hadn't realised how much I was missing your Scananavian news-story posts :-)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I am happy to revive the service ;-)

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I am finding this funny for quite a different reason -- my father, who recently died at the age of nearly 94, was nicknamed Ram.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I've tried to answer this comment in a witty and yet tasteful fashion, but find that I can't!

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

His actual first name was Grant, and his work buddies used to collect headlines that said things like "Grant to Study Unwed Mothers," "Grant Comes Through," "Grant Saves the Day," etc. I'm sure "Ram Groping" would have been right up their alley.