Chucking it down

I don't like black pudding. There's an argument that it's the ugliest looking piece of food ever. UOAT. Ugliest Of All Time; a new category of OATs. Ramsbottom: now there's a contender, on name alone. Yesterday, The Official World Black Pudding Throwing Championships were held there. Apparently it's something to do with antipathy towards Yorkshire puddings (Ramsbottom is in Lancashire so a modern day War of the Roses) which are incidentally pretty tasty, especially if served on the right (dinner plate) size, with gravy. This:

Not these:

In an attempt at raw journalism, I asked ChatGPT who won yesterday's Championships.

The winner was Ged Flanagan from Salford. If you want, I can also tell you how many Yorkshire puddings he knocked down, or who came second?

They throw them at the Yorkshire puddings? Wow. I'm almost at my limit of interest in this bizarre manifestation of British culture, but I couldn't resist wondering how many he did knock down. Could it be 100? Or maybe Ged was the only contestant to score at all.

Nine.

In more news, there were allegations of cheating in the World Stone Skimming Championships which the Times, apparently without irony, describes as "prestigious". Perhaps in Easdale, "one of the slate islands off the west coast of Scotland" (I thought I'd just quote the newspaper on that, to save me the bother of some independent journalism) where the contest is held, it's prestigious. I mock not.

Organisers were alerted that some of the participants had been deploying stones that had had their rough edges filed off before being flung across the flooded quarry where the tournament is held.

Shocking. "They deeply apologised for bringing the sport into disrepute and accepted disqualification", said Kyle Mathews, a GP who acted as "toss master". Apparently there are seven categories by age and other attributes, including one for "old tossers" aged 60 and above. I'm thinking of entering next year, just so that my family can forever call me that - or maybe they already do, privately.

I know you want to know: the overall winner was Jonathan Jennings from .... Kentucky. What? You travelled halfway round the world just to skim some stones? Don't you have lakes in Kentucky?

In other throwing news, the UK is about to start chucking out some "small boat" migrants to France this week, as part of the new "one in, one out" agreement. Not surprisingly, the UK and French governments are not giving any details of who and how many, particularly on those we're letting in.

Final news on these matters: the rain in Cornwall was chucking it down so hard last night that my satellite connection was disrupted and I actually missed the added time handball and subsequent penalty which allowed lucky Liverpool to go back to the top of the Premier League table. Ugh.

It also affected the opportunity to see the final public performance of trumpeter Alison Balsom, of whose playing I am a massive fan, in the Last Night of the Proms. I am very averse to that event, which seems to me to be less about actual music and more about flag waving - of which we need rather less at the moment IMO. Maybe there will be a YouTube video.