Odd traditions

As I listened to the news late last night, at the point when the news presenter chats with a pundit about the headlines in the next morning’s paper, I heard a little something that made my ears prick up. The presenter referred to a pancake race between Members of Parliament and journalists, won this year by the MPs apparently. So this morning I went and had a look on Google.

This is the 15th year that this race between MPs, Lords and journalists has taken place, raising money for the charity Rehab. And yes, the MPs won thanks, seemingly, to the athletic performance of the only female MP to take part, Tracey Crouch – a Tory, I’m afraid but we can’t have everything. There was a little controversy, however, as the journalists claimed that the MPs and Lords had only done nine laps of the gardens instead of the required ten. Shocking!! Is this an example of government corruption in action?

So they had to have another run-round to check and the female representative proved stronger once again. It was very odd to see BBC’s Nick Robinson, usually quite a serious person, wielding a pancake pan!

Of course, with the North-South weather divide this event would not have been viable up here because the pancakes would have got too soggy to toss.

Then, this morning I came across a report about a Shrove Tuesday ball game. This takes place in Atherstone in Warwickshire. A heavy leather ball – made specially every year, filled with water and draped in red white and blue ribbons – is dropped from the window of the Barclays bank branch in the town. Then a few hundred people try to get possession of it. No rules, no teams, no goals: it sounds like total, and probably rather dangerous, mayhem. Eventually, after a bout two hours, a klaxon sounds and whoever has the ball at that point is the winner. Here’s a link to some photos of this strange event.

And there I was thinking that it was only other countries that had these odd traditions. When I looked online for some more oddities, though, there was very little to see. However, I did find this:

‘Shroving’ was a custom in which children sang or recited poetry in exchange for food or money. ‘Lent Crocking’ was one of the many customs of the day when children would pass from house to house asking for pancakes. If they weren't given any broken crockery would be thrown at the door!

Now that sounds like a pre-cursor for “trick or treat”, if you ask me!