Jottings
News from the UK and around the World
. . . the wild, the wacky, the wonderful, the weird and the downright infuriating
Silly Season
Journalists sometimes refer to high
summer as the “silly season” when real
news has gone off for its summer
holiday and silly stories are left to make
headlines. This summer has been no
exception ...
Council Capers
What do chickens have that sheep don’t?
We ask only because the 29th World
Hen Racing Championships went ahead
as planned last month in Derbyshire, but
two traditional summer sheep races
were cancelled.
The hen race is held at the Barley Mow
pub in Bonsall where “highly trained”
chickens vie to discover which is fastest.
People apparently “flock” (get it?) to the
village to witness the spectacle. Landlady
Colette Dewhurst said the event is
“quintessentially English,” but added,
“Sometimes the chickens don’t bloody
move. They’ll peck the ground, have a
mud bath, go to the toilet or just sit
there.”
This year’s outright winner was Jack
Allsop, aged nine, who took first and
second place with his hens called
Cooked It and Plucked It.
However, two councils cancelled their
traditional sheep races this summer in
which the sheep would have run along a
course with a jockey (a stuffed toy)
strapped to their backs.
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Moffat in Scotland and Wooditton in
Cambridgeshire have both bowed to on-
line petitions which decided the event
was “cruel” and “terrifying” for the
animals. Besides which, one read, “no-
one asked the sheep.”
The petition against the event in Moffat
(population about 2,500) carried 80,000
signatures, while in Wooditton
(population about 1,900) it was
supported by 40,000 signatures.
Talking of cruelty to animals (which we
weren’t), Suffolk County Council has
reacted to complaints about a temporary
road sign warning motorists that the
safety reflectors which mark road lanes
had been dug up. It read, “Warning –