England beat India in egg roulette + paranoia, killing baby girls, massacres

Egg smashes on forehead in First Test Match at Amritsar

Almost a fortnight ago, I blogged about Andy Dunlop, president of the World Egg Throwing Federation, heading a team of top English egg throwers  bound for India for an acclimatisation period before Team England (surreally including a Scotsman) faced the might of India in a historic First Indian Test Match in the Russian Egg Roulette Series.

They cracked it.

Andy and the team have now returned to Britain in triumph.

You can see the BBC TV report here.

Yesterday, constantly interrupted by calls from the BBC and other media outlets desperate for puns about sporting eggsellence, he told me what had happened in India…

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We went to India for a couple of reasons.

To teach 1.2 billion people how to play Russian Egg Roulette.

And to assist/promote the campaign to end polio.

The former we excelled at, though we may not have quite reached our target figure.

The latter… we are getting there.

This is likely to be the 3rd year with no new polio cases in India, but there is still work to be done in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Over 20 innoculators have been killed this year in those countries due to religious-based fear, so they are going to be difficult to crack.

Our Indian trip took us Delhi, Lucknow and then to Amritsar. In the course of 10 days, we see-sawed from Upper Class opulence to the depths of destitution. You have to see and smell it to really experience it but, even then, you can’t with your full belly and the knowledge that, soon afterwards, you will be back in a 5 star hotel supping a beer which would cost the locals a week’s wages.

In Dehli we took part in pre-event publicity for the polio National Immunisation Day, when 172 million children under the age of five would receive 2 drops of vaccine in their mouths.

Then on to Lucknow, where we did more press and then went out into the Muslim community to assist the local teams. We were clad in bright yellow polo shirts adorned in Polio symbols, getting people into the booths, stopping traffic and explained that we weren’t there as part of a US-led conspiracy to sterilise the kids but to rid their community of polio. Suspicion, though, was deep and was openly displayed.

On our second day there, we did mop-ups: going from house to house, knocking on doors, child catching anyone who couldn’t reach over their heads to touch their opposite ear (a sign that they are under five) and didn’t have the little fingernail on the left hand painted purple.

When that process finished, we were whisked off to a Rotary-sponsored orphanage to see how they look after the abandoned children. Two of the youngest babies there had been brought in the week before after being found deposited on a rubbish dump.

A hundred or so tiny kids were being looked after and were looking after each other. The blind and autistic were being led by the able-bodied.  Great work was being done, but we noticed there were only three girl children.

It seems that girls are usually killed before being dumped… but the papers report that female infanticide is reducing.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar: 45,000 are fed free each day

In Amritsar, we marvelled at the Golden Temple and the volunteer teams who run the kitchens which enable 45,000 visitors to be fed for free each day.

We learnt about the massacre in Amritsar in 1919, about Udham Singh, freedom fighters, revenge and modern day terrorism.

They didn’t mention the last, but the armed guards in the streets, the arrests and  recent events told us we were in  place of potential danger.

They didn’t mention the anti-Sikh riots which killed 3,000-4,000  in recent times, nor the fact that the 1919 massacre was carried out by local Sepoys and Gurkhas under the command of the Brits.

We visited the memorial to the 1919 massacre but we were not shown any memorial to the 1984 massacres.

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Wikipedia currently has a page listing some of the massacres in India. So it goes.

Edinburgh Fringe Russian Egg Roulette – and the First Indian Egg Test Match

(A version of this piece was also published by the Indian news site WSN)

Russian Egg Roulette contest at 2012 Malcolm Hardee show

Last year’s increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show at the Edinburgh Fringe included a celebrity Russian egg roulette contest featuring the likes of comedians Richard Herring, Arthur Smith and eventual winner Lewis Schaffer.

It was officially sanctioned and supervised by internationally-renowned Andy Dunlop, president of the World Egg Throwing Federation – himself a former Dutch National Russian Egg Roulette Champion and 2012 Birdman of Worthing winner.

Russian Egg Roulette will be back at this year’s increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show on 23rd August in the ballroom of The Counting House in Edinburgh.

The official rules are fairly simple, if messy:

Individual challenge against an opponent on a knock out basis. Players sit opposite each other, across a table. A tray containing 6 specially selected eggs will be proffered. 5 hard-boiled, 1 raw. Each player takes it in turn to select one and then smash the egg onto his or her own forehead until one player finds the raw one. The finder of the raw egg loses the game or match.

Today I feel honoured – indeed, humbled – to announce that, after long and careful consideration, the World Egg Throwing Federation has decided that this year’s contest at the increasingly prestigious Malcolm Hardee Comedy Awards Show will be given the official accolade of Scottish National Egg Roulette Championship.

Andy Dunlop confirmed the details yesterday.

Hopeful Russian Egg Roulette team Bell, Dunlop, Bath, Leech

This morning, he and a team of top English egg throwers scrambled to get on a plane bound for India where, next week, Team England will be facing the might of India in a historic First Indian Test Match in the Russian Egg Roulette Series.

Andy told me yesterday: “The four of us have honed our skills in reiki, aura differentia and egg divining.  We won’t be relying upon luck.”

The match itself will take place in Amritsar, which Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday visited barefoot.

But I can reveal today the shocking truth that Team England will include a non-English ‘ringer’ – Scotsman Norry Bell, who has been brought in to boost England’s chance of success because, well, frankly, because the Scots are better than the English. As a Scot, Norry says he hopes to do well “as long as the eggs are wrapped in sausage meat and bread crumbs”.

I did ask Andy Dunlop yesterday why the team is representing “England” and not “Great Britain” and he was somewhat evasive.

“Hmm,” he told me, “we did consider that but, due to historical differences of opinion between the two nations, we decided to drop the Great Britain tag. And, apart from that, the damn Welsh would have complained about exclusion from selection.”

The other two team members, Stephen Bath and David Leech, look on Andy Dunlop and Norry Bell as joint team captains and say: “We would follow our captains anywhere, mainly out of curiosity to see what they do next.”

Team England will have a short period of acclimatisation before their match next Wednesday. During that acclimatisation period, they will be supporting the Polio National Immunisation Day on Sunday 24th February in the Lucknow region, as part of Rotary International‘s project to rid the world of this disease. And, on Monday 25th, they will help undertake a sweep of the area to ensure no children under 5 have been missed in the immunisation.

Amritsar will play host to the First Egg Test Match next week

On Wednesday 27th, the big match itself will take place at the Mohan International Hotel.

The cost of the trip has been financed out of the team’s own pockets. They receive no funding whatsoever from any government, any polio campaign funds nor any charitable organisation nor Sport England. Virgin Atlantic declined to upgrade Team England from cattle to upper class on their flight, despite pleas. Two of the team are using their Air Miles. The others, Andy told me, “are too inexperienced” to have attained the right amount.

He also tells me that absolutely no chickens will be harmed and all eggs used will have been checked and declared unfit for human consumption before use.

The winners will receive a fine silver trophy. For the losers, there will be a carved wooden cup with a lid to hold the shells of defeat.

The 2013 World Egg Throwing Championships will take place in Swaton, Lincolnshire, on Sunday 30th June.