Fanhouse boosts our brutal foreign culture quotient for the day by inuring us to the bizarre savagery that is the British sport of shin kicking, in which combatants are paired off to try to throw each other to the ground, but only after punting each other in the shins, which they're hardened using hammers. Awesome.

As the sun began to set on Dover’s Hill near Chipping Campden, a band of white-coat-clad competitors began stuffing straw down their trousers like their lives depended on it. To the uninitiated this might have looked like a Worzel Gummidge convention, but for the hundreds of spectators crowding the hill’s banks, it marked the beginning of The British Shin Kicking Championship 2008 – an annual highlight of The Cotswold Olimpick Games.

I understood precisely 20 percent of that excerpt. Worzel Gummidge? Cotswold Olimpick? Simmelwick Coppington Worstershire? Wuzzle Wozzle? All's I know is that it involves some awkward looking violence. If only it could be interpreted more figuratively and the event could involve repeatedly kicking the band The Shins. Twee little cunts.

The braintrust behind the part-rock, part-hip-hop, all-cartoon group Gorillaz, frontman Damon Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett, have teamed to create an entertaining athletic cartoon supermonkey (and pals) who will do all manner of outrageous hijinx that will be more entertaining than the Olympics themselves. Of course, it's for the BBC. Most Americans will have to make due with overwrought schmaltz from their networks. Cloying back stories? You bet! 

The concept is based around Journey to the West, a famous Chinese novel, published in the 1590s and considered one of the four most important works of fiction in China's history. It follows a monk with several disciples, including a monkey, as they battle increasingly fierce demons on a quest to retrieve Buddhist scriptures for China.

"Monkey and the characters will travel across China to Beijing.

"While they will use magical powers to fight off various monsters and demons, they'll also use all sorts of Olympic sports as well. So Monkey might use gymnastic powers, Pigsy will be hurdling and Sandy uses taekwondo."

A shame it's not the Winter Olympics, for monsters and demons are loathe to deal with curling powers. Too bad for Sandy, though. Even in cartoons does taekwondo blow.

It begs the question why there can't be more monkeys involved in the actual ceremonies. If there are legions of them snatching your bags for shadowy thieves, surely they can train a few to bring the medals to the stands. Sure, the medals will be covered in feces and parasites, but it's not like the winners are going to wear them long anyway.