Each person picks a even numbered team from a list of celebrities, with no-one being allowed to pick two siblings, team members or actors from the same soap. One additional celebrity is chosen as the fool.
To simulate the high-paced world of leaping about with ribbons, sticks and bells each team is scored for being able to perform groovey dance routines. Each team is divided onto two (expected for the fool) and each half is expected to alternatively be in or out of the news respectively each week for 12 weeks with regards to a set of newspapers. This represents people dancing backwards and forwards for no apparent reason.
You gain marks for your fool by your chosen celebrity making a fool of themselves.
For each the 12 weeks you score 1 point for each celebrity performing his or her role correctly that week and the winner at the end of this 12 week stint becomes mildly enthusiastic.
Max Clifford must never be allowed to play this game ...-- Aristotle, Apr 03 2002 Morris Dancing, with photographs http://www.martinwildig.com/mwmorris.htmPlum Jerkum from Long Itchington? Oh give me a break already. [jutta, Apr 03 2002] What is Morris Dancing? http://www.ucolick....orris/whatisit.html [jutta, Apr 03 2002] directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Performing_Arts/Dance/Morris_Dancing/ http://directory.go...nce/Morris_Dancing/The root of the Google Morris Dancing directory hierarchy [hippo, Apr 03 2002, last modified Oct 04 2004] And who, for that matter, is Max Clifford? http://news.bbc.co....1485000/1485789.stm [jutta, Apr 03 2002] Oh wow. I had thought Terry Pratchett just made that up.-- jutta, Apr 03 2002 Hmmm... Gwynneth Paltrow, David Beckham, Guy Ritchie, Richard Dawkins, with Prince Edward as the fool.-- hippo, Apr 03 2002 Okay, I take the entire list (however long it happens to be), plus or minus enough celebrities to meet the conditions of team-matedness. You can pick my fool at random as I completely fail to understand that person's purpose, but I bet s/he gets a lot of points.-- phoenix, Apr 03 2002 Can any one explain why Morris Dancing exists? And if so, why it hasn't been outlawed yet?-- waugsqueke, Apr 03 2002 Jutta: Yes although the idea is very Pratchettesque I have to admit however I think it is unique. All credit is down to the great man and to Phil Masters (co-author of GURPS Discworld) for showing that mere mortals can write like our hero.
In general: Fantasy Morris Dancing would involve either drawing your celebrity from a lottery to avoid too many similar teams or using a point system. The points system could be quite hard as you need people who are intermittently in the news to simulate the "in" and "out" drama of the baton brigade and hope that they are in sync with the correct half of your fantasy troops' dancing.
It could be automated by doing a seach on the BBC or another agreed news server for someone's presence in last the weeks news on each Friday. Someone present would be an "in" and someone absent would be an "out".-- Aristotle, Apr 04 2002 random, halfbakery