Yorkshire Pudding Boat Races...

[fajrdrako]

Under the category of "People Do the Strangest Things", I just read that people hold Yorkshire Pudding Boat Races. And no, they are not eating while they race in boats, they are using pudding as boats....

Why didn't St. Brendan think of that?

The gent who conceived the idea was sitting in a pub when he thought of it.

I bet he was!

Comments

[chatona.livejournal.com]

A boat made from pudding?

... I.. see.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

All me to paraphase Asterix - or maybe quote him: Ils sont fous, ces Anglais.

The things people will decide to do. This isn't just one lone madman: he has accomplices in his games!

[chatona.livejournal.com]

So, so true. Though, to be quite honest, I wouldn't say it's just the English. They might, however, have a particular brand of madness all to themselves.

As long as they don't hurt anyone, I guess it's okay? :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

to be quite honest, I wouldn't say it's just the English

No, and that's the joke in Asterix - in every story, someone says something like, "Ils sont fous, les Romans," or "Ils sont fous, les Egyptiens", and it's always true, and it's always aother nationality.

The English, however, have a special talent for originality in their extraordinary madness. A skill for eccentricity.

No, boat races with puddings aren't harmful. I don't think. It makes me think of playing croquet with flamingos, another English notion.

[chatona.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know :) If I remember correctly, it's the Romans most often, though :D

A skill for eccentricity. I like that description :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

A skill for eccentricity

In the most interesting sort of way.

[filkferengi]

Don't forget the fine folks who grow enormous pumpkins [over 1,000 pounds each!], make boats out of them, & have a regatta every year. http://worldsbiggestpumpkins.com/

Let's just say, the English aren't alone in said skill.

Pot, meet kettle.

:)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

A pumpkin regatta.

Okay, now I have to figure out whether I think sailing a pumpkin is more eccentric than sailing a Yorkshire pudding.

[Ponders]

The difference is small enough to be irrelvant.

Regardless.... more than a thousands pounds of pumpkin is a heck of a lot of pies.

Pot, meet kettle.

Inevitably.

[rosiespark.livejournal.com]

St Brendan who crossed to Ireland, was it, on a gravestone?

Reminds me of an insident in one of the Poldark books in which Jud Paynter publicly and belligerently takes exception to a sermon describing something similar... I'd like to reread those books sometime.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

St Brendan who crossed to Ireland, was it, on a gravestone?

Somehow that sounds Dunnettesque!

I don't recall that story, but St. Brendan took a long voyage in a little boat and had many fantastical adventures with islands of magical miracles and storms at sea. Historians speculate that he sailed from Ireland to Maine around 550 A.D. - I'm not sure how they reached that conclusion, though Tim Severin has a book about, recreating the voyage. He is known as St. Brendan the Navigator. I've always been rather fond of him, as saints go. A while ago I translated half of the book about him, Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis, but never got through the whole thing. I do remember though that he describes in some detail how they built their boat. Not out of pudding.

St. Brendan is a bit of a favourite of mine. I like the Dark Ages. They have... scope for the imagination.

I'd like to reread those books sometime.

Me too. I was just looking at a few minutes of Poldark on TV today. Felt all nostalgic about it. Haven't seen those (or read the books) in years.