{"id":2464,"date":"2015-10-19T12:29:04","date_gmt":"2015-10-19T11:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodvale.com\/?p=2464"},"modified":"2015-10-19T12:29:04","modified_gmt":"2015-10-19T11:29:04","slug":"laterally-speaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/laterally-speaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Laterally Speaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Humph\"As I write, we\u2019re in the middle of a late summer sporting flurry including Britain\u2019s remarkable progression to our first Davis Cup tennis final since 1978 and the on-going adrenalin rush of the Rugby World Cup. Coming on the heels of England regaining the Ashes this summer and Team GB\u2019s continued successes in the Athletics World Championships a couple of months ago, I have to ask myself what\u2019s gone wrong? Why this triumphant winning run? I\u2019m more used to reading doom headlines such as \u201cEngland Flops Again\u201d or \u201cUK Teams Exit\u201d (hopefully not the case with the Rugby!). It might be a sudden burst of fresh Atlantic ozone from a breezy weather system or perhaps a new energy food now available in British supermarkets (\u2018WheatyDinner makes you a winner\u2019). It\u2019s certainly nothing to do with the taxman or the nation\u2019s banks as they tend to take stuff away from us rather than put stuff in. Perhaps, along with shooting stars and UFOs, these victories are yet another strange phenomenon caused by the unexpected arrival of Jeremy Corbyn? Unlikely, as most of our successes happened before his election. So, it\u2019s a mystery and like other unexplained events, I shall calmly marvel at our national brilliance and put it all down to Global Warming and the \u2018feel-good\u2019 factor of nice Sunday evenings brought on by the return of Downton Abbey.<\/p>\n

It\u2019d be good if these sporty triumphs kept going for a bit as we don\u2019t want our successes to sizzle out like damp sausages on an October barbeque. One of the surest ways to maintain winning habits is to win at lots of world events in which no other country takes part. Americans are particularly good at this: they\u2019ve been holding their own World Series since 1903 even though hardly anyone else in the world plays baseball. Likewise the NFL winners are referred to as World Football Champions even though no other country plays American Football. This isn\u2019t cheating\u2014it\u2019s called \u2018positive marketing\u2019 and we\u2019re pretty good at it too.<\/p>\n

Here in the Southwest we\u2019ve already established global fame with annual events like the \u2018Dorset Knob Throwing Challenge\u2019 (every May in the Dorset village of Cattistock) and the \u2018World Nettle Eating Championships\u2019 (every summer at the Bottle Inn in Marshwood). But we need many more weird and world shattering championships to keep ahead of the rest of the globe, so here are some lateral suggestions for the future. Local villages and towns and potential sponsors please take note:<\/p>\n

In addition to Cheese Rolling which involves getting yourself and your cheese to the bottom of a hill, let\u2019s set up other sports related to food. Orange Cricket comes to mind as do Melon Croquet and Apricot Golf. Egg Golf would be a fairly messy affair, but no doubt with lots of birdies (geddit?). Pumpkin or Marrow Rugby might be worth trying but only if they\u2019re not too ripe otherwise we\u2019d have to call it Squash. And Plum Ping Pong would make the table very sticky\u2014you\u2019d have to wear swimming things and get hosed down afterwards.<\/p>\n

As well as Dorset Knobs, we could try hurling Devon cream teas (with or without the strawberries), dead badgers or West Bay mackerel. I had one of these (mackerel, not badgers) the other day and it was bent into a boomerang banana shape. Perhaps if I threw it, it would come back?<\/p>\n

Given our new West Dorset recycling bins and highly complicated instructions, I\u2019d like to introduce the World Recycling Championships. Nothing to do with a repeat of the Tour De France, but everything to do with putting the correct type of rubbish into its correct receptacle by the time the kids depart the house for the school bus. Competitors\u2019 bins would be checked and timed against the clock and points deducted for putting tins into the garden waste or (most heinous of crimes) plastic cling film into the food bin!<\/p>\n

I also like the idea of a local World Pooh Sticks Champion, a pet bunny show jumping and dressage contest (sort of Rabbit Badminton) and World Snail Racing\u2014a bit like Formula One but taking two years (rather than two hours) to complete. Holy Mackerel (again)\u2026 I\u2019m told that these three already exist! Ah well, what about Extreme Sports?<\/p>\n

Some of you may have heard about Extreme Ironing\u2014doing one\u2019s shirts on top of a mountain or underwater etc\u2026 and yes, it does exist as a sport! For the truly insane, there\u2019s Extreme Base Jumping which involves falling off tall cliffs and buildings like the Eiffel Tower with a small parachute (just like James Bond in A View to a Kill). I now suggest Extreme Sheep Dog Trials which is shortly to make a celebrity comeback on ITV with FlockStars (yes, really) taking over from the BBC after 40 years of One Man and his Dog. To be World Champion in my Extreme Dog Herding version, you don\u2019t merely herd a flock of six meek sheep or pigs or even wayward ducks into a pen or through a gate. Instead you have to herd half a dozen domestic cats. I agree that this would be impossible for any dog (let alone any human being) to win, but it would make for highly amusing television.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write, we\u2019re in the middle of a late summer sporting flurry including Britain\u2019s remarkable progression to our first Davis Cup tennis final since 1978 and the on-going adrenalin rush of the Rugby World Cup. Coming on the heels of England regaining the Ashes this summer and Team GB\u2019s continued successes in the Athletics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,46],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-2464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles","category-laterally-speaking","tag-humphrey-walwyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}