Whacky World Championships….

And breathe…September is here. I pointed out last week that this is my favourite month and after the madness of July and August it’s good to get a little bit of me time.

I’ve gone World Championship nuts this week and managed to find some of weird and wacky things that people compete in.

The World Air Guitar Championships took place last week in Finland. The winner was a lady called Nanami Nagura from Japan. Let’s just think about this these are people stood on a stage basically miming playing a guitar to a piece of music. If you had to choose an air guitar song what would it be? Mine would have to be Guns N’ Roses “Sweet Child of Mine.” Not that you’d see me air guitaring anywhere soon. Although come to think of it I’ve done air drumming which I’m sure I’m not alone in especially to “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins. 

Wales’ smallest town, Llanwrtyd Wells, hosted the World Bog Snorkelling Championships at Waen Rhydd peat. 125 people braved the bog waters and tackled the two lengths of the 180ft peat bog in fancy dress last Sunday. Despite the heavy rain for most of the day, there were smiles all round as a new bog snorkelling world record was set.

Neil Rutter, 34, from Swindon, broke the previous record, set in 2014, by only four seconds in a time of 1 minute and 18.82 seconds.

Top spot in the ladies category went to Elinor MacCormac with a time of 1 minute and 48.46 seconds. They had entries from as far as the USA, Canada, Australia, Korea, Iran, Ireland, Belgium, Italy and the Czech Republic.

THE 11th annual World Gravy Wrestling Championships were held at the Rose ‘n Bowl pub in Stacksteads, Lancashire on last weeks Bank Holiday Monday. 

All wrestlers are sponsored to take part in an effort to raise money for good causes. Dozens of contestants wrestled in gallons of gravy, raising much-needed funds for the East Lancashire Hospice and other nominated charities.

To win the contest, contestants must wrestle in 1,800 litres of gravy for two minutes, with points scored for fancy dress, comedy effect, entertainment and wrestling ability. The winners were Joel Hicks, a model and actor from Leicester wrestling as Mudman, and Roxy Afzal, a neonatal nurse from Manchester, who won the women’s event for the second year in a row. Not sure I would order the pub roast after that!

Upcoming World Championships include the World Porridge Making Championships which have taken place each year in the Scottish Highlands village of Carrbridge since 1996. The oaty cook-off draws competitors from across the globe to compete for the coveted Golden Spurtle trophy and title of “World Porridge Making Champion.” What is a spurtle I hear you ask, well to be honest I had to look it up too. The spurtle is a wooden Scottish kitchen tool, dating from the fifteenth century, that is used to stir porridge, soups, stews and broths and the winner gets a golden one! Not satisfied with just oats, water and salt? Don’t worry, competitors also battle it out for the speciality trophy in a section that celebrates the versatility of porridge with past winners including Sticky Toffee Porridge and Fruity Date Porridge. This years competition will take place on Saturday October 6th.

Also in October is the world conker championships who could be forced to import horse chestnuts from Germany because the heatwave has shrivelled the UK crop. Unusually hot and dry weather conditions threaten to throw this year’s competition into crisis, as conkers have grown too quickly and are smaller than usual. The annual event’s organizers held an emergency meeting last week to discuss the possibility of importing horse chestnuts from Germany if British ones are too small and shriveled to play with.

Around 5000 people usually attend the event every October, where over 300 people compete in the competition. Contestants are provided with conkers and are not allowed to bring their own or reuse them. This year’s event will be held at the Shuckburgh Arms in Southwick on Sunday, October 8.

Some fans of George Ezra’s “Shotgun” have just noticed something a bit odd in the background and now they’re saying it’s all they hear every time they listen to it. At 59 seconds, just as he’s about to start singing, there’s a very unusual noise in the song and many people believe it’s a burp. Now coming from a boy born in Hertford, Hertfordshire I had my doubts. Remember also he was the guy that was urging people to download the song “Three Lions” to knock him off of the number 1 spot. Which dually happened so I was delighted to see his song “Shotgun” go back and replace Drake at Number 1. So does this all round good egg actually burp on the song? Well I urge you to have a listen as when I played it to my Wife and two Sons they became burp converts too!

A good away win for Real Mallorca in Madrid last Monday against Rayo Majadahonda. That’s two wins from two and no goals conceded so far meaning they lie second behind Malaga in La Liga 123. However a disappointing 1-0 defeat last night away against Alcorcon mean they remain in second place before the other games over the weekend. They play at home next Friday against Cadiz and kick-off at the Son Moix is 21.00.  

Enjoy Your Weekend!

Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.30-11.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone, Android, The Tunein Radio App and on the Spanish TDT TV service. If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance! 

Feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.com