I’ve been emailed this twice and found it posted all over the web, e.g. http://list.xs4all.nl/pipermail/jotd-l/2000-March/000029.html
What I can’t find, of course, is the supposed “Sydney Olympic Committee website” these questions come from. Another UL spam?
Perhaps the fact that the web site you posted is called J.O.T.D. (Joke of the Day) may provide a clue.
The longer you hang out here though the more you’ll see that people ask far dumber questions.
I linked to the JOTD website because it popped up first on Google. However, neither email I received nor any of the other places I found it on the web say that the questions are fictional obviously because it’s just not funny unless you think there are actual stupid people who would asked the questions. The author also have all those little details that are intended to impart credibility, like the names of the countries, referring to the non-existent but official-sounding Sydney Olympic Committee, etc. Standard UL procedure, of course. Most people probably just accept it as fact and forward it to everyone in their addy book.
Go to the Sydney Olympics page - there is a ‘contact us’ at the bottom of the page, which may be where these came from, or it may be where someone is pretending they came from. I was unable to find evidence either way.
By the way, the athlete of the day today, Mandy Smith, is a white hot babe.
Doug - where can I find more pictures? She looks promising…
The question about camels isn’t totally off the mark. I was watching one of Michael Palin’s travel series, and he was helping rope some camels in Australia. I can’t remember all the details, but I think they were originally brought in to one of the outback towns (Alice Springs, maybe?) several decades ago to use as draft animals. Once the railroad came, nobody needed the camels anymore so they just let them go, and they’ve been surviving and breeding since then.
One of the comments claims it’s 7000 miles from Perth to Sydney. I know it’s less than that, and a real Australian would use kilometers.
The questions posted may or not be legit- it’s entirely possible that they’re just jokes. But don’t kid yourself- real people DO ask questions at least as stupid as these.
When my uncle was a pastor on Long Island, he ALWAYS got a dozen calls each December from people asking (sincerely!) what time Midnight Mass would be!
I’ve seen these same questions floating around through email before, not associated with the Oympics at all. The last time I saw them, it was in a list of stupid questions asked of people all around the world - these were the “Australia” section. Hold on, let me see if I can find a link… Hmm. Nope. It wasn’t where I thought it was. Sorry.