Every four years, the world stops to marvel at feats of athletic prowess: people running faster than seems biologically sensible, somersaulting through the air with a grace that suggests an unfortunate deal with gravity, and lifting weights so heavy they could double as mid-sized hatchbacks.
But amidst the sweat, the medals, and the national anthems, there lies a glaring oversight: where, pray tell, are the events celebrating the real skills of humanity? The everyday triumphs that unite us not through sheer physical exertion, but through the universal spirit of “I’m surprisingly good at this pointless thing.”
It is high time we proposed a new Games: the Forgotten Olympics.
Competitive Napping: The Dream Team Event
Imagine it: a hushed stadium, the gentle sound of a lullaby wafting over the tannoy, competitors curled up in branded pyjamas. The goal? Fall asleep faster than your rivals and stay blissfully unconscious despite a soundtrack of lawnmowers, snoring spouses, and minor domestic crises.
Points awarded for:
- Speed of nodding off (gold for under two minutes)
- Gracefulness of sleeping position
- Bonus for mid-nap dribble without waking oneself up
Judges will deduct points for tossing, turning, or the dreaded “loud snort-then-wake” combo. Team GB would, naturally, dominate this event; we’ve been practicing on commuter trains for decades.
Extreme Procrastination: The True Endurance Test
While sprinters dash and marathoners endure, procrastinators finesse the subtle art of not doing things. In this event, athletes must delay a simple task—say, writing a two-line email—for the longest possible time without missing the deadline.
Scoring matrix includes:
- Inventiveness of excuses (“I had to alphabetise my spice rack”
- Dramatic last-minute sprints to finish
- Unnecessary tasks completed first (e.g., hoovering behind the fridge)
This is a mental decathlon: part creativity, part panic, entirely relatable.
Passive-Aggressive Note Writing: Stationery Meets Snark
If you’ve ever lived in a shared house, you’ve seen the battlefield. “Please remember to actually wash your dishes :)” — the smiley face a chilling twist of the knife.
Athletes will be judged on:
- Veiled hostility
- Creative use of quotation marks and underlining
- Ability to weaponise Post-it Notes
Final round involves strategic placement: fridge doors, passive-aggressive hotspots, and communal microwave ovens.
Synchronised Queueing: Precision, Poise, and Politeness
An event so British it would need its own dedicated channel on the BBC.
Teams must form queues for imaginary events, maintaining:
- Perfect one-metre spacing
- Polite nods of recognition without eye contact
- Unified tutting at queue-jumpers
Bonus points for forming a queue before there’s even anything to queue for. Team GB would win gold, silver, and bronze without breaking a sweat.
Remote Control Retrieval: The Hide-and-Seek Gauntlet
You know the scene: you’re sprawled on the sofa, the telly’s stuck on a documentary about cement production, and the remote is… nowhere.
Athletes must locate the remote hidden somewhere in a heavily booby-trapped lounge (featuring Lego mines and precarious coffee tables) in under two minutes. Penalties for shouting “Where’s the flipping thing gone now?!” more than three times.
This would, naturally, become the most-watched event worldwide.
Professional Overthinking: Paralysis by Analysis
Perhaps the most British event of all. Contestants are presented with an innocuous text (e.g., “Sure, see you then!”) and must spiral into maximum existential doubt within the shortest time.
Gold awarded for:
- Inventing at least three possible offences taken
- Rewriting response messages fifteen times
- Asking a friend to “double-check if this sounds normal”
A true endurance event for the mind and a celebration of the national pastime: worrying unnecessarily.
Competitive Apologising: Saying Sorry for Existing
An event that Britain would not just win, but redefine. Contestants must apologise profusely for minor inconveniences, things that aren’t their fault, and, ideally, their very existence.
Scoring includes:
- Number of apologies per interaction
- Creative apologies (“Sorry for breathing in your general direction”)
- Sincerity-to-situation mismatch (gold if you apologise to an automatic door for bumping into it)
Advanced heats include apologising for being in the way when someone else crashes into you. Judges deduct points for apologies that seem rehearsed rather than instinctive.
Closing Ceremony: A Round of Applause for the Unnecessary
Perhaps it’s time we stopped pretending that only the fastest, the strongest, and the most aerodynamic deserve medals. Let’s celebrate those among us who excel at the other arts: the nappers, the procrastinators, the passive-aggressive note-leavers.
Because let’s be honest: anyone can train for years to vault over a horse. It takes a lifetime of honed skill to write “If you could maybe not leave your mouldy sandwiches in the fridge next time, that’d be lovely :)” with just the right balance of faux-pleasant menace.
And isn’t that, truly, the Olympic spirit?
AJ Wright is a quiet yet incisive voice navigating the surreal world of sociology, higher education, and modern life through the unique lens of a neurodivergent mind. A tech-savvy PhD student hailing from South Yorkshire but now stationed in the flatlands of Lincolnshire, AJ writes with an irreverence that strips back the layers of academia, social norms, and the absurdities of daily life to reveal the humour lurking beneath.
As an autistic thinker, AJ’s perspective offers readers a rare blend of precision, curiosity, and wit. From dissecting the unspoken rituals of academia—like the silent war over the office thermostat—to exploring the sociology of “neurotypical small talk” and the bizarre hierarchies of campus coffee queues, AJ turns the ordinary into something both profound and hilarious.
AJ’s unassuming nature belies the sharpness of their commentary, which dives deep into the intersections of neurodiversity, tech culture, and the often-overlooked quirks of human behaviour. Whether questioning why university bureaucracy feels designed by Kafka or crafting surreal parodies of academic peer reviews, AJ writes with a balance of quiet intensity and playful absurdity that keeps readers coming back for more.
For those seeking a blog that is equal parts insightful, irreverent, and refreshingly authentic, AJ Wright provides a unique perspective that celebrates neurodiversity while poking fun at the peculiarities of the world we live in. Also a contributor at Thinking Sociologically.
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