Clip-a-di-clopingly awesome
April 24th, 2007
There were 4382 5567 silly people (including me) who registered and met up to participate in this event.
Awesome. Absolutely awesome.
(Update: pictures added)
Trafalgar Square was completely filled with people with coconuts.
BFI showed some black and white comedy on the big screen while we were waiting for the whole thing to start. It was some well chosen comedy with a lot of horses. Every time a horse was in sight the whole square started coconuting which was hilarious.
There were knights with coconuts, posh gentlemen in sharp suits with coconuts, children with coconuts, tourists with coconuts, geeks with coconuts, Monty Pythons addicts with coconuts, Englishmen, Scots, Dutch, Italians, Indians, Chinese people with coconuts.
They showed clips of Michael Palin with the instruction video of the Ministry of Food (not sure this was the title …), where he explains how to prepare your coconut and how to bang them together.
If that wasn’t clear enough, Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam were there live on stage to instruct us how to coconut!
The cast of the Spamalot musical was there to warm up us, and the conducter of the Spamalot orchestra was conducting us through the world record attempt.
The actual attempt was done on “Always look on the bright side of life”. We sung the lyrics, and clip-a-di-clopped our coconuts on the whistling parts of the song.
Hearing 5567 people singing that particular song, in the middle of London, accompanying it with coconuts - it’s one of the most beautiful and funniest things I have ever been to.
Oh, and we beat New York (they had the old record with a pathetically 1785 people) by a mile!
Some (pocket camera) pictures:
April 24th, 2007 at 11:40
Just brilliant!! :D
April 24th, 2007 at 11:45
Enjoy the tea tonight…
April 24th, 2007 at 11:50
Thank you. This is a very very weird week :)
April 24th, 2007 at 13:27
So you have been horsing around again.
Absolutely cocoNUTS!
Must have been a good day for the coconut business.
Where did you get yours from?
April 24th, 2007 at 13:37
They were handing them out for free! That was probably also the only way to get this many people clip clopping with coconuts. And it’s of course also a big media stunt as it was heavily sponsored by the Spamalot musical.
April 24th, 2007 at 15:28
Where did you get the coconuts? Found them, did you? In Mercia?
April 24th, 2007 at 15:29
I think you’re a serious (coco)nutcase :-)
April 24th, 2007 at 15:29
Er, I mean: where did they get them…
April 24th, 2007 at 15:37
@Pedro - and proud to be one! :-)
@Edwinek - I’ll get back on that, there was a piece paper attached to the coconuts which I have at home. I think it said where they came from. But my guess is that they are sold as a byproduct by a coconut factory (where they take out the coco from the nuts for Bounty’s and the like).
April 24th, 2007 at 17:04
Your Coconut Event will be on television on CNN’s noon “Your World Today”, the international news, which I’m watching right now!
Wave, Ingrid, wave!
April 24th, 2007 at 20:53
Woah, we got 5567? We so rock. I have been demonstrating the trot/canter/gallop/jump combo to people in the office all day. They did not get tired of it. Not in my head anyways.
I can imagine some people last night thought to themselves “No, on second thought, let’s not go to Trafalgar Square. It is a silly place.” And they were gloriously right.
April 24th, 2007 at 20:54
And woo hoo! I am just about in one of your photos.
April 24th, 2007 at 21:23
And they just showed it in the news here too!!
April 24th, 2007 at 22:29
I must watch the News at 11 and see if it’s on. Wonderful fun!
April 24th, 2007 at 22:54
It was in teh Guardian this morning, then a bit of footage on newsround. I was scanning it thinking “Is that her?” :)
April 24th, 2007 at 23:52
chuckles, thats me in the pictures with the blue and red hat and the pink and black glove \o/ what an awesome day like, gotta say I’ve never been to anything like that before :D
April 25th, 2007 at 06:24
Byproduct? How unpythonesque…
April 25th, 2007 at 09:40
@Michele - I waved! Did you see me? :-)
@Paul - we are worldrecord holders now, you know. I am going to put that on my CV. And thanks for mentioning the trot/canter/gallop words, I wanted to write them into this post but couldn’t remember them! The jump cracked me up, that was awesome.
@looby: yes that was me :)
@Benny - you’re a world record holder too!
@Edwinek - that was just my guess, no idea where they got them.
April 26th, 2007 at 17:48
I just fell over laughing in a computer lab. That was great.
April 29th, 2007 at 18:57
Go you! I was thinking about participating but never made it.