Egg-throwing, cabbage-hurling, onion-wanging and Hardee Comedy Awards

A 2014 Spot The Cabbage competition in Lincolnshire

Throwing things at other things is always interesting especially, it seems, in Lincolnshire.

In a couple of weeks, the World Egg Throwing Championships take place in Lincolnshire and, yesterday, I went up to Holbeach Town & Country Fayre to see cabbage hurling and onion wanging (that’s hurling too).

Both events are connected to the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Andy Dunlop, President of the World Egg Throwing Federation, supervises the Scottish National Russian Egg Roulette Championships during the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show at the end of August.

And John Ward, supervisor of cabbage hurling and onion wanging, designed the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Award trophies.

Russian Egg Roulette at the Amritsar Test Match in India

Russian Egg Roulette is a bit like the Russian Roulette seen in The Deer Hunter but without bullets and with eggs. It involves two contestants sitting opposite each other at a table on which is a box of six eggs. Five of the eggs are hard-boiled; one is raw and will smash on impact. Each contestant takes it in turn to smash an egg on their forehead. The one who finds the raw egg loses. It is a knockout competition.

Cabbage hurling is for adults. Onion wanging (because of the smaller size of the missile) is for children.

At the World Egg Throwing Championships, trebuchets (basically large catapults similar to but smaller than medieval siege catapults) are used to throw eggs. You have to build and bring your own trebuchets.

Careful preparation is important in the cabbage hurling world

Thus, too, with cabbage hurling and onion wanging, except two trebuchets are provided.

Yesterday, there were 3½ tons of cabbages delivered in a refrigerated trailer.

“They’re actually grown for coleslaw production,” John Ward told me. “That’s why they’re white not green. They’re all Grade 1. Last year, I asked: Any chance of a box of cabbages? and yea and behold this behemoth of a truck arrived with 4 tons of cabbages. We asked them to cut it back to 3½ tons this year. There’s a limit to how much you can hurl in one afternoon and a lot of them get re-cycled in the field. Each team of three has three attempts and some of the contestants run up and retrieve and use the same cabbage again, shouting: That’s my lucky cabbage!”

Cabbages are hurled at multi-dimensional tractor tyre targets

The object is to catapult the cabbage into one of several marked vehicle tyres for 10, 20, 25 or 50 points. The 10 point tyre is large; the 50 point type is small.

John Ward, who has been known to encourage journalists to call him a ‘junkist’,  told me: “All the scrap metal to build the two trebuchets came from farms in the area. The uprights are from the transit cases for Kubota garden tractors which come from Japan. In transit, they have metal cages, then a wooden box inside and then the tractors are inside that. Normally the cages are unbolted and thrown away as scrap. Last year, someone told me he had a yard full of them and asked: Are they any use to you? ARE THEY ANY USE????? Red rag. Bull.”

John Ward contemplates the ecological impact of his hurling

“Do you get complaints about wasting food?” I asked.

“I had some herbert this morning,” John told me. “who was ranting at me about wasting food and I told him: Well, if you come back later today, you’ll find it’s all been picked up – all the loose leaves and everything – and it all goes to animal feed. Cows thrive on all this sort of stuff. There’s no waste. There’s an end product. It’s a win-win situation. We get entertainment. The cows get fed.”

“You could franchise cabbage hurling,” I suggested.

“We’ve been asked to take it round other shows in Lincolnshire. But, at the end of the day, No, it stops here. It’s associated with Holbeach Town & Country Show. Like they have cheese-rolling in the West Country.”

The 2014 Cabbage Hurling winners with John Ward yesterday (The lorry behind had delivered over 3½ tons of cabbages)

The winners get £150 and a silver cup which they keep for a year.

With the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards, the winner gets one of the eccentric trophies designed by John Ward. But he/she gets to keep that trophy forever. I like to think, rather than give a trophy which the winner keeps only for a year, with the Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards, we give the winner something interestingly decorative which lasts longer, like herpes.

There is a video report on Cabbage Hurling on the BBC website. 

One UK comedian obsesses about a goat; another refuses to tell me a story

The last two days have been odd… It all started with a goat in Oz

The last two days have been odd. I and my eternally-un-named friend have had colds and coughs for three weeks.

Yesterday morning in London, comedian Bob Slayer was trying to persuade me I should write a blog about Gary The Goat in Australia. As regular readers of this blog will know, earlier this year Bob traversed the Outback with Gary The Goat and his owner Australian comic Jimbo.

Now Jimbo has found himself in trouble with the law because Gary The Goat ate some grass and (the police allege) some flowers.

“This is Goatgate!” Bob tried to persuade me. It’s a must-do blog post!!!”

“I don’t know what the angle is,” I told him. “The story is basically Goat Eats Grass. That’s a Dog Bites Man story. It’s not interesting. Man Bites Dog and Then Eats Grass and Flowers would be a story. Goat Eats Grass and Flowers and Owner Gets Fined is like Dog Bites Man and Owner is Prosecuted. It’s not quirky. It’s normal.”

Gary the Goat (left) with Jimbo earlier this year in Australia

“This is Goatgate!” said Bob. “Gary The Goat’s Facebook page was on 400 likes at the start of this and it is now 8,500. The first post about this that went viral had 25,000 likes and it was seen by nearly half a million folks…”

“Gary The Goat has a Facebook page?” I asked.

“Yes, he does,” said Bob.

“It’s not unusual enough,” I told him, coughing.

Then I got a phone call from comedian Martin Soan.

“I’m running around putting the show together for tonight,” he told me. “I’ve a great blog for you, but I’ll forget it. I’ll tell you the title. Remind me tonight.”

“Y-e-e-e-s-s-s…” I said warily.

“The Social Structure is Alive and Well in the NHS,” said Martin.

“Righto,” I said, coughing.

Last night, I went to Martin’s Pull The Other One comedy club Christmas show and party.

Bob Slayer on stage with a hat & a mop last night

Bob Slayer was there. He told the audience a story about being employed to hang up dead Christmas turkeys which shat themselves. I think that was the story. He wore a Father Christmas hat and swept the stage a lot.

Afterwards, he told me: “Gary The Goat didn’t eat any flowers. Them coppers have invented that to try and justify their ridiculous actions. Anyway, the story is about the nanny state. And the fact that increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Award winning comedian Bob Slayer is in the thick of it and making a documentary with Brown Eyed Boy…”

“If Australia really were a nanny state,” I argued, “it would welcome goats.”

“That is the line!” said Bob triumphantly. “Gary is a Billy! It is about sexism!”

“It’s not unusual enough,” I told him, coughing.

Then comedian Charmian Hughes showed me a video on her phone. It appeared to show her dancing ballet in the middle of a three-lane motorway.

The 1812 Overture performed with cannon on London stage last night

After that, Martin Soan performed the 1812 overture with a cannon on stage, his wife Vivienne on clarinet and comedian Stephen Prost on trumpet. It was quite messy.

Afterwards, I said to Martin: “What about that blog idea? The Social Structure is Alive and Well in the NHS.”

“If you stick that iPhone in my face,” he said, shouting over the loud music from DJ Ratsmilk, “I’ll dry up. I talked to Steve Frost today and – this is absolutely true – absolutely fucking true – But I’m not going to tell you the story now, because I’ll fuck it up.”

“You won’t,” I said.

“I will!” he shouted.

“Go on,” I shouted.

“I told Steve Frost today in the car,” he shouted, “about anal exploratory surgery. And, in the sketch on The Frost Programme with John Cleese and The Two Ronnies, it was… I didn’t even realise it. I should’ve been a stand-up doing it on stage and I would have been up there with Michael McIntyre. Well, that’s a lie. But Steve made me remember.”

“What?” I asked.

“It’s a genius story,” said Martin. “but I’m drunk.”

“So tell it,” I said.

“No, I can’t now, John!” shouted Martin over the music. “I’m drunk. I will fuck it up. It’s the rule of three, it’s comedy and it’s the National Health.”

“Tell me the story,” I insisted.

Martin Soan (left) introduced Vincent Figgins, Edwardian animal impersonator, last night

“No!” said Martin. “I will not do it now!”

“I can blog about you not telling me the story,” I told him.

“In the sober light of day, I will tell you,” said Martin. “It is perfect, it’s the truth and it’s the rule of three. And it’s comedy. It happened to me in an exploratory anal situation.”

“In a hospital or in a toilet?” I asked.

“You’re just trying to wind me up and wind me in!” Martin shouted over the music. “You’re not going to get anywhere. It’s perfect. I do not want to fuck it up. Steve reminded me. He said it’s just genius, it’s true and it happened to me, but I’m not going to tell you now because I’ll just fuck it up. It was cool, though. Really cool. It’s perfect. And it’s true.”

“What is?” I shouted. “Have you seen the video of Charmian dancing in the middle of a three lane motorway?”

Then I had a coughing fit.

I went to bed at 3.45am.

At lunchtime today, my eternally-un-named friend suggested I put a cabbage leaf on my chest, to stop my coughing.

“Crush the leaves with a rolling pin until the juice starts to appear,” she said, reading from a book called A Guide to Home Remedies. “Place three or four leaves over the chest area and cover with gauze. Then place a warm blanket over to keep in place…. So,” she added, “you could watch television while doing that.”

I looked at the page in the book.

“You can also,” I read out loud, “drink the juice of the cabbage sweetened with a teaspoon of honey.”

“We’ve got the juicer,” said my eternally-un-named friend, “so you can drink the juice.”

“This is when the chest is tight with coughing,” I read out. “Cabbage has an extraordinary ability to draw out toxins.”

“There’s going to be a lot of onions,” said my eternally-un-named friend. “And garlic, maybe. And ginger. But you didn’t find a decent ginger the other day.”

“This means we are going to have to take a picture of a cabbage leaf on my chest,” I said.

I am wary of the medicinal power of vegetables

“This means you might do it?” asked my eternally-un-named friend, with a surprising hint of hope in her voice.

“What’s the alternative?” I asked.

“A poultice of roasted onion, apparently,” she replied, “applied to the chest every two hours. Onions can also be drunk, it says.”

“They can’t be as drunk as Bob Slayer,” I said.

“Oh, John…” sighed my eternally-un-named friend reprovingly