Last week's column concerning traditional British food unfortunately failed to mention one of the highlights of the year, the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships, held every September in Ramsbottom, near Manchester. It dates back to the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century between the House of Lancaster (red rose) and the House of York (white rose).
Legend has it that in one battle the warring factions ran out of ammunition and started throwing food at one another. This has since evolved into an annual skirmish with Lancastrians throwing black puddings at Yorkshire Puddings placed on a six-metre-high plinth outside a pub. It all sounds pretty daft, which of course is exactly its intention.
There are many other eccentric "championships" held in Britain including Cheese Chasing in Gloucestershire, Snail Racing in Norfolk, Bog Snorkelling in Wales, Tin Bath Racing in the Isle of Man, Gravy Wrestling in Lancashire and Lawn Mower Racing in just about every county. It will come as no surprise that a pub is usually not far away.
We must not forget the quaintly-named Knob Throwing Championships in Dorset featuring competitors hurling the popular "Dorset Knob" savoury biscuit as far as possible. This event should not be confused with the World Welly Wanging Championships which involves the tossing of Wellington Boots in the delightful Yorkshire village of Upperthong. A must for all welly tossers.
Chaps and twits
One of the more bizarre sporting occasions is the annual Chap Olympiad, said by organisers to be "a celebration of British eccentricity and sporting ineptitude". The emphasis is on style rather than ability and all competitors must display distinct sartorial splendour. Held every July in Bedord Square Gardens in central London, the gripping events include umbrella jousting, ironing board surfing, cucumber sandwich discus throwing and butler racing.
The Chap Olympiad is possibly derived from a 1970 Monty Python sketch entitled "Upper Class Twit of the Year" in which five posh contestants faced an eccentric Olympic-style course. All the prize twits had silly multi-barreled names like Simon Zinc-Trumpet-Harris and William Smith-Smythe-Smith. Other competitors included Nigel Incubator-Jones and Oliver St John- Mollusc. Among the events facing these prize twits were the challenging Walking in a Straight Line, Jumping over a Matchbox, and Insulting the Waiter.
Conker castle
We must not forget the World Conker Championships held every year near the Northamptonshire market town of Oundle. It's a simple game played with the nut from a horse-chestnut tree and a piece of string.
On a trip to England some years ago I happened to be with a party of American tourists visiting Arundel Castle in Sussex. The grounds of Arundel were full of horse chestnut trees.
After walking around the castle grounds for an hour one American came up to me in excited fashion. Apparently while he was strolling around, he was approached by an aristocratic-looking gentleman who spoke "posh" and challenged him to a game of conkers. The conker man introduced himself as the Duke of Norfolk (also known as the Earl of Arundel), the owner of the castle. "Hell, there I was with this real duke who started talking about conkers and I didn't even know what a conker was," said the American.
I explained to him that it was one of those silly games the British keep fairly quiet about because they don't want to be beaten at it by foreigners.
Thailand's flying comma
In recent years there have been many reports of how the apostrophe is being rejected around the world and could almost become an extinct part of the English language. Things have got so bad for what is often called the "flying comma" that even Britain's Apostrophe Protection Society has disbanded, its founder complaining "the ignorance and laziness in modern times have won".
However, there is a small ray of hope for the apostrophe coming from Thailand of all places. It is bucking the trend courtesy of one of the biggest supermarket chains. It stems from last year when the CP group took over the Tesco side of the Tesco Lotus operation and rebranded the logo, calling it Lotus's. Admittedly it is bit of a mouthful and I have yet to hear any Thai refer to it with its new pronunciation.
One suspects "Lotus's" will continue to be known as "Lotus" by all and sundry, but it can still be regarded a small triumph for the much-maligned apostrophe.
Scrap the screamer
One form of punctuation we could probably do without is the exclamation mark, sometimes known as a "screamer", although there is arguably a place for it when warning of danger as in "Watch out!" As F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke."
British educator Neel Burton suggests the use of the exclamation mark depends on where you are from. He notes, "In America, they use exclamation marks to make everything look terrific, in France to make everything terrible, but in England we don't use them at all".
In his book How Not To Write a Novel, American author Howard Mittelmark doesn't mince words: "You should think twice before using an exclamation mark. If you have thought twice and the exclamation mark is still there, think about it three times, or however many times it takes until you delete it."
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