For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Darwin Awards are for people who "do a service to Humanity by removing themselves from the gene pool" in some particularly stupid fashion.
Previous holders (usually postumous, naturally) include an American who jumped out of a plane to film skydivers without wearing a parachute (1987), and the Brazilian who used a cigarette lighter to inspect the inside of a fuel tank (2003).
For those who do not actually die or lose their reproductive capacity, there is the honourable mention. This is a game we can all play at home; my personal shortlist, for example, includes the three boys I caught last week lighting a surreptitious fag while perched in a row on the school's oil-tank.
Today I'd like to nominate the young man who ran into a tree while simultaneously jogging and tweeting. According to the victim, in a scene which must have been viewed by passers-by with no little satisfaction and Schadenfreude, "The branch came out of nowhere and hit my face hard."
Well, they do that, branches. In fact, there's a whole lot of dangerous Nature out there, just waiting to pounce on the unwary jogger, particularly if he's using both thumbs and most of his brain to broadcast the amazing information that he's "Running to work, very late".Luckily for the waiting nation, he survived to tell us "Smacked my face against a branch, hurts". To think that we came so close to being deprived of such a literary talent forever!
Previous holders (usually postumous, naturally) include an American who jumped out of a plane to film skydivers without wearing a parachute (1987), and the Brazilian who used a cigarette lighter to inspect the inside of a fuel tank (2003).
For those who do not actually die or lose their reproductive capacity, there is the honourable mention. This is a game we can all play at home; my personal shortlist, for example, includes the three boys I caught last week lighting a surreptitious fag while perched in a row on the school's oil-tank.
Today I'd like to nominate the young man who ran into a tree while simultaneously jogging and tweeting. According to the victim, in a scene which must have been viewed by passers-by with no little satisfaction and Schadenfreude, "The branch came out of nowhere and hit my face hard."
Well, they do that, branches. In fact, there's a whole lot of dangerous Nature out there, just waiting to pounce on the unwary jogger, particularly if he's using both thumbs and most of his brain to broadcast the amazing information that he's "Running to work, very late".Luckily for the waiting nation, he survived to tell us "Smacked my face against a branch, hurts". To think that we came so close to being deprived of such a literary talent forever!
And to think I always said Twitter was good for nothing. It's certainly good for a laugh...
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