A man and his wife arrive late at the stadium for a football match and take their seats.
The wife says to the neighbouring spectator, "What's the score?"

"Nil-nil"

"Oh good, we haven't missed anything!"

[joke may not work with U.S. sports]

And you see, for me that joke succinctly sums up the utter pointlessness of all sporting events, but I expect some people would see it differently.

Well, life itself could be considered pointless, if you want to get right down to it.

Yeah, well there's pointless, as in life, and then there's COMPLETELY pointless, as in watching other people play sports.

It's post like these that make up the core chapter of this wonderful dissertation of yours, hat. Now if we only could get the dissertation committee together... Tell you what - AJP, you go check the bars. I'll try the massage parlors.

Ah, but there's a warm glow of self-satisfaction that comes off a crowd that has just enjoyed an entertaining nil-nil draw, a glow that says: "We are the sort of people that don't come to matches for the goals, for the victory or defeat, but to appreciate the sporting ability put on display for us ... we spit at your recorded highlights, your televised goals round-ups. Give us more nil-nil draws like that!"

No, you check the bars, I'll do the massage parlors.

Whine, whine. As if a 135-134 basketball game is more interesting. Shut up and eat what's on your plates. Those who sneer at God's plan will be having a rude awakening one day.

I had a rude awakening just the other morning. Goddam cats.

I suspect the set of those who read for plot overlaps extensively with that of those who denigrate the nil-nil draw.

Slightly on topic as MMcM would say, did совет mean council before the word was taken over for political purposes? It makes Supreme Soviet sound slightly less creepy if it also meant supreme council.

Yes, that word has a sad history. It meant 'council,' and when workers' councils were formed during the 1905 Revolution they were naturally called sovet, and they were quickly dominated by political radicals. When similar groups were formed in 1917, they were consciously seen as continuations of the earlier ones, and they represented the radical populist movement as against the liberalism of the government. The Bolsheviks used the slogan "All power to the Soviets" (i.e., the local councils of workers, peasants, and soldiers, which were very popular), and when they took power they gutted the Soviets themselves but kept the name for its popular connotation, thus turning a symbol of popular, bottom-up direct democracy into one of brutal authoritarianism. It's a damn shame. You can get more background here and here (the 1905 edition).