Unhelpful

A week or so ago, I was thinking about a particularly amusing XKCD strip about Google search results in relation to a rather silly story about the Vatican suggesting that people consider give up text messaging for Lent.  This made me curious as to what the best hit for the phrase “Gave up x for Lent” where x is some traditional Lenten sacrifice, or an ironic statement about Lent, or just some terribly random thing.  I aimed for the funny, but actually ended up surprising myself.  Just a note, I searched for “gave up x for Lent” rather than “give up x for Lent” because I figured out of the two phrasings, the former was more likely to be a real (if funny) circumstance, or at least an honest observation, where as the latter would be slightly more likely to be someone trying to make a funny suggestion.

We’ll skip the lecture on the scientific approach to irony here.

Starting with the classics here, without much surprise.
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