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We ask you: which bizarre fringe Olympic event are you looking forward to?

THE Olympics are here, and with them a host of events you have never before heard of which prove captivating viewing. What’s your favourite? 

Carolyn Ryan, restructuring specialist: “I’ve found this Strictly business upsetting, so I’m looking forward to 14-year-olds contorting their bodies in the gymnastics. Their trainers aren’t cruel.”

Sophie Rodriguez, barista: “Artistic swimming. Pretty sure ‘artistic’ means ‘naked’ in this context.”

Wayne Hayes, tunneller: “BMX Freestyle Girl-Impressing: bunny hops, wheelies, every stunt it takes to get a teenager girl to go out with you. In 1985 I would have run that shit. ”

Donna Sheridan, antiques dealer: “Simply for the sheer amount of money you need to take it up, Equestrian Sailing. The contestants are the richest of the rich.”

Roy Hobbs, retired: “Every year I miss the pie-eating event. I swear the BBC doesn’t show it.”

The only six ice-cream choices available to a child in the 1970s

TODAY’S kids, in addition to their bloody phones, can pick any f**king flavour ice-cream they want. When you were a child these were the options: 

Vanilla

To a generation, this was ice-cream. Bright yellow, simultaneously watery and oily, and in its soft-scoop version the invention of a young scientist named Margaret Thatcher, it tasted of nothing, was definingly bland, and was a top-echelon treat.

Strawberry

Pink version of above. The strawberry taste was sickly and disgusting but it was a sensation. You knew you’d had it. You’d boast about it at school.

Chocolate

Didn’t taste like chocolate but nothing chocolate-flavoured did back then. Drinking chocolate didn’t taste of chocolate. Chocolate biscuits didn’t taste of chocolate. Still, it was the right colour.

Neapolitan

Vanilla and strawberry and chocolate, all in one tub? Astonishing and only for special occasions, like your parents’ anniversary or a neighbour’s divorce. Allowed you to confirm they were all essentially identical, and to mix them together for a sweet, grey post-war reward paste.

Raspberry ripple

Blew minds. There are grown adults still reeling at their first encounter of vanilla ice-cream shot through – in picturesque ripples – with deep, flavoursome raspberry. How? Why? Was Thatcher involved again? Does eating this make me a scab? But God help me I cannot stop.

Mint choc chip

Unavailable to the general public for decades, only sold through specialists, this was your mum’s ice-cream of choice. Green, sophisticated, containing real chocolate, as adult as smoking in bed, as luxurious as Imperial Leather soap. An After Eight in frozen form, you imagined Princess Margaret would have one, in a bath. Too raunchy for the Queen.

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