Alright, and welcome to the Why British People podcast. The podcast designed to help you understand British English through real-life conversations. My name is Dan. And as always, I'm joined by my co-host and mate, it's Stu. Stu, how are we doing, brother? Absolutely wonderful. Thanks, buddy. How are you doing? I'm not too bad. I'm all right. Thanks for asking. So what have you been up to this week?
well this week i've been working on um no i haven't been i've been doing a lot of work but then i've also been into tokyo at some point uh to see some friends how about you yeah not much i went I went to a shrine in a mountain which were good so near my house there's like a shrine up in mountains that we went to and I was knackered when I'd finished but it were good got to see some cherry blossoms and that a nice use of a day
Sounds good, yeah. No, no, sounds good. Was it for Hanami? Yeah, partly. And partly because I've lived here three years and my wife's always like, let's go there, let's go there, let's go there. And eventually, all right, let's go there. Hanami is like a meet-up and drinking and eating food with your friends under the cherry blossoms we have every year in Japan. It's nice. It's nice.
But it wasn't specifically for that reason, but they did have some nice cherry blossoms. So it were all good. It were all excellent news. So good. And today's then, today's episode, Stu, what are we talking about? What's the topic of today's? episode today's episode is all about weird british events when i were researching this episode there's a lot of really weird events that even i'm like
British people are weird, man, looking at some of this stuff. But growing up, did you ever experience any local festivals or local events or whatever you want to call it? Yeah, in my town, I lived in a very small village, maybe 3,000 people lived there. there in the middle of Dartmoor. and we had an event called Lamb Pie Day. It's like that classic thing you see on a lot of films where there's some stalls, there's like a pie judging contest or something. Oh, okay, okay.
And they have like live music throughout the day. And yeah, it's good. It's just nice, you know. Yeah, it sounds similar to what I experienced growing up. There'd always be some local carnival or... whatever you want to call it where there'd be different stalls and you know maybe some like country show or something like that that kind of thing where yeah but i don't know it's
wasn't that weird for me but i did experience that kind of thing growing up maybe not the pie judging thing that sounds kind of cool but no i wasn't a part of it i wasn't i'm not really a pie maker unfortunately um But, yeah, there's a lot of things. One weird thing, though, one weird part of that day, well, apart from the fact that it's like sheep in the street.
is that to be fair it's on the edge of a national park so you know it's it's yeah it's normal but the one thing that was very weird was that there was one pub in the middle of the town They always did burgers. Now, it doesn't sound weird at the minute, but the burger meat was usually like very random. So I've tried so many different types. I've tried like a crocodile meat. Not Onyx because it's a Pokemon, but there's like a...
There's like an animal that begins with like OX or something like this. What about like kangaroo burger or something like that? I had a kangaroo burger from there before. There was like a really, really random style of burger. That's pretty funny. And, yeah, so that was a bit weird, but it was an interesting experience. Do you mean ostrich, by the way? No, no, no, no, but maybe that was one of the bugs as well, because they were always...
Lost count. Maybe it's not LX, but there's definitely X in there somewhere. I'll leave that up to your trivia brain to work that one out, whatever it was. My trivia brain, you mean Google? Oh, yeah. Everyone's trivia brain is Google, innit? That's why pub quizzes are rubbish nowadays. Yeah, man. But, you know, growing up in these kind of things were pretty normal, but they weren't that weird. We did some, like, maypole dancing and that kind of stuff.
May Day. Yeah, May Day. Morris dancing was a big thing when I was growing up. Yeah, Morris dancing. Morris dancing were everywhere. But that's not really the topics I've got to say. I've kind of found four weird festivals. I thought were like... Mate, this is weird. So I want to talk a little bit about some of these ones. I think the most famous one that people know in terms of weird British events is the Cheese Rolling Festival, right? Cheese Rolling, yeah. I heard about it.
follow it down the hill with a stick or something i can't remember but i've definitely heard about it you try you have to try and catch the cheese or something like this yeah which is funny because you've got no chance because a bowl of cheese going down a hill is going to get like 70 miles an hour yeah like you're never going to catch that so what's the point but from what i understand is loads of people go up the top of a big hill
And then somebody throws a wheel of cheese down the hill and everyone tries to run after it. But, you know, trying to run down a proper steep hill. With a wheel of cheese. Yeah, it's never actually going to work well, is it? Like... They're quite heavy as well, aren't they, from what I've heard? Like, what, the people? Well, that as well, because they're chasing cheese, so they must be quite heavy. I can't imagine their diet, but...
Yeah, no, the wheels of cheese are quite heavy. Quite a few kilograms. I hope you don't get hit by that if you're at bottom watching. So the hills must be quite steep as well. I guess it gathers quite a lot of speed. So I can imagine a lot of people falling over. Yeah, they do. Apparently, so many people get injured. They stack it. Good word. To stack it. If you don't know what that means, by the way, to stack it means to fall over suddenly.
But it's on a very specific hill in Gloucester. Apparently it's called Cooper's Hill. And it's very steep indeed. And these mental people run after a wheel of cheese. For reasons that I don't really understand. I'm interested to know what's at the bottom of the hill. So how do they stop the cheese? Hopefully some kind of barrier. But do you want to be running down a hill that's steep into a barrier? Like it's going to be game over, isn't it?
Maybe they have, like, a massive pillow, I hope. Or a bouncy castle. A bouncy castle at the bottom would be pretty good. Or a trampoline. Yeah, yeah. Boing? Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is, but... I think people have heard of this one before. When people think about like eccentric British things, they usually think about like cheese rolling festival. But the thing that baffles me is like, what goes through your head to be like, yes, I want to take part.
in this event tradition isn't it tradition you know like tradition is a key thing that why we do any of this random stuff isn't it it's just happened for a long time and people think it's unique And then eventually people do it for because it's so unique and this kind of thing. But when they started, there were no traditions. So the first few must have been like...
That cheese must have been proper valuable, mate, to risk bones and concussions and that just for a bit of cheese. I guess that it would come from an event of some sort. So, for example... um someone saw someone chasing after some cheese down a hill one day and they were like that's a good idea and and then and then it became a competition you know and then it eventually became this bigger bigger thing yeah
I heard that it's not proper cheese anymore, though. Well, elephant safety, isn't it? I couldn't imagine that in Japan people would like to see food. being chased after played with number one and rolled down the hill because you know people really don't really respect food here let's say that way probably be individually wrapped though wouldn't it if it were in japan a million cheeses all individually plastic
Lots of baby bells in a wheel of cheese. That would be more fun, I reckon. They've got like a million baby bells in a lobby. In one wheel of cheese, and then if it breaks open... See that? I'd gladly enjoy you watching that. I don't know. I don't like cheese enough to care about running downhill after some cheese. At the end of the day, if I really wanted to, I'm sure I could buy four kilograms of cheese. You've lived in Japan.
for too long the cheese in england don't forget it's very good so uh yeah i could be doing that definitely i don't know nice cheddar or something Like, you must really enjoy cheese to fancy running down a hill. Look at me, I really enjoy cheese. Yeah, but I don't, and I'm a big lad, so there you go. I think horses for courses.
But for me, I can't see me ever doing this in my entire life. I'm just baffled by it. Absolutely baffled by it. You know, if you ever fancy taking part yourself, apparently it's spring bank holiday weekend. in Gloucester. I don't even really know where Gloucester is. Gloucester's to the west of the Midlands, close to Wales. Okay, fair enough.
Go up to Topper Coopers Hill and wait, and eventually you'll be joined by a bunch of other mentalists. Hordes of people will be coming to chase after their cheese. Apparently, I looked last year, an American won it.
I'm not having that. Well, it's an international thing now, you see. Everyone brings cheeses from... they have to bring teas from their own nation as well they just bring those like slices that's why he just uses easy to catch don't even don't even roll yeah but yeah I thought that was an interesting weird event
What about the second one on the list? Any ideas about this one? Well, when I first read the title, I was like, what are we getting ourselves into here? Because the slang of the word could mean toilet, so I was like, oh no. Do you want to explain it? Yeah, for those of you that are listening, we're talking about the UK Bog Snorkeling Championships. Those are words I never thought I'd say together, to be honest with you. But...
We did, and that's where we are. Now, Stu, what is a bog? You mentioned it's slang for toilet, but what is it actually? A bog is like a... an area a muddy area where it's there's like a lot of water as well so it's like a very wet area filled with mud disgusting kind of place where you imagine
You know, you see in those like nursery rhymes where there's a witch in the forest and then it's always surrounded by a bog, like a really horrible looking area. Like basically imagine a massive puddle made of mud. British people or Welsh people saw that bog and they were like, you know what? That's a fantastic idea. Let's just go for a swim. What? Why British people? Why? snorkeling we should probably explain a bit as well like what is snorkeling so snorkeling is is when you um
When you go underwater with a snorkel, the thing that you attach to helps you breathe, yeah. So they were like, let's go in this massive muddy puddle with a snorkel. What? What are you on about? So yeah, apparently they swim for like 60 metres. 60 metres is quite far, isn't it? For what it is? In a bog, like I couldn't imagine it. It sounds horrible. I can't see you doing like breaststroke or something.
Front crawl. I think you're just basically crawling along in mud, aren't you? You can't be doing backstroke if you've got a snorkel, though. It's a bit of a nightmare. oh yeah that's kind of counterproductive isn't it but butterfly do you get extra bonus points for like um the style you're doing yeah like in olympics there's different different versions like
I don't know, mate. It just sounds mental to me. But, yeah, they get their snorkels on, their swimsuits, and they go for a swimming mud. But the worst part about this, mate... is that it's called the Bog Snorkeling Championships, which means they've turned it into a competition somehow. It was so popular. Can you imagine? Like, I can swim in a puddle of mud better than you can.
Wait, wait, wait. There are several competitions from the Bog Triathlon to the World Bog Snorkeling Champion. That's just one of the events here. This is a whole day filled with bog.
uh fun bug triathlon so what cycling in mud and swimming in mud and running in mud basically i i guess so yeah i don't know this must be what people did before they had nintendos and that this must be like it's definitely something traditional and again it's something that's come back from a long time it's like they used to do like a kind of a very long time ago one of the places part of the history of
Football is, they used to do like an inter-village. Gang football or whatever it is. Like a mixture of rugby and football together. It's like massive teams are like... like the whole village against the next village and you had to kick ball into their pub or whatever it were you had to go between the two villages and the team that gets it to the other village wins so it's like one of those kind of oldies
traditions isn't it competitors though I want to know if it's like the Olympics whether there's people who come from all around the world for this one as well well apparently it leads on this as a qualifier for the world bog snorkeling championship sound like this is a qualifier for an international event and they're the fact that it's a championship i want to know how that what is the training for this yeah like rocky montage and that how do you practice for this it must take some very
like incredible upper strength to do that because if you imagine swimming through water it's very easy to do but Bog is like filled with... Sludge. Yeah. So it's difficult to go through. 60 metres, I'll be knackered. You can imagine being so tired after that. Not only that, at some point you've got to be like, OK, I'm athletic enough.
to swim through this bog. Is there not better things you can do with your time? Like, can you not put that energy into something else? Come on, at home to have the world... bog snorkeling championship trophy on your on your mantelpiece just sitting there everyone come round and have a look at this you know I wonder what kind of trophy it is how are they depicting that like if you win a karate tournament
You've got like a little karate guy on top of the trophy. What are they putting on top of that trophy? What happens to the host when the person comes out as the winner? Do you want to touch that guy to like hold his hand up like in boxing? You know, they're stinking.
You wouldn't want to do it, would you? Like, it'd be awful. From arm's length, like. Yeah. If you accidentally swallow water, maybe you have to immediately go to hospital afterwards, just to make sure you haven't got some horrible disease. Yeah, it'd be awful, wouldn't it? So if you're interested in that, guys, make sure you rock on down to Clannerted Wells in mid Wales. Good pronunciation, mate. Thank you very much. Good pronunciation. To be fair, I lived in Wales for two years.
I got a couple of bits from there with these combinations. Double L, you wouldn't even know it was clan. Double L, so clan I did well. Please enjoy your time there in mid Wales and bring your snorkel and your swimsuit. It's very, very important, for sure. And some tissues. Or a towel. A wet wipe or something. Just one wet wipe, yeah. Saw you out. And the next event I've picked out is...
Something that I played as a kid is the World Conker Championships. So you mean you played Conkers as a kid, yeah? Yeah, I didn't enter the World Championships. I weren't that good, you know. But Conkers we played as a kid where you get like a... Is it a chestnut? Chestnut. And you drill an hole in it and you put a shoelace on it and you kind of whack it against other people's conkers.
Did you not roast yours? No, I used to bake it in vinegar. Bake it, bake it, sorry, yeah, bake or roast, yeah. Bake it in vinegar, because apparently it made it soft and it was harder to crack. Yeah, exactly. Tactics, mate, tactics. Tactics. Tactics, we were well in. involved in it. But as a kid, that weird thing is like, what did you do? I baked it.
To be fair, this one I can understand being an actual championship because it is popular in the UK. So when I was a kid, you could go in to school with your hardened or your softened conker that you'd baked in the oven to make it. better to use to try and win basically the goal is you two people have these conkers on like a piece of string and you have to hold the conker back
And then you fire it at the other conker and the goal is to break the conker of your opposing, of the opposing person. Yeah, like crack their conker because it falls off the string, right? That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has to completely fall off the string is the key thing. Take it in turns.
Whack your conker, then you'd whack my conker. Now, that is a sentence that sounds wild to somebody who doesn't know what's going on. You're going to be digging a little bit there. Yeah, so you do that. But then... When I left school, when I was at school, we could take our own conference in and do it in the playground. But I heard like health and safety in England went a bit crazy in the 90s and in the early 2000s.
If you wanted to do it at one point, you had to wear goggles to protect your eyes. Really? And then eventually you weren't allowed to take conkers into school. I'm not surprised by that. The reason why is because when you hit the other person...
the portions of the conker like splinter off and fire away. Probably some kid lost an eye at some point, you know. It definitely happened, you know, especially in school it probably happened, yeah. Of course though, mate, if you're playing conkers, it's not ballet.
Is it? But yeah, I think this is kind of weird. But these guys have took it to the next level. Apparently it's in Northamptonshire. The Ashton Conker Club. Sounds like a cricket club. Yeah, exactly. That's what I thought. They've got their own little pavilion in... And since 1965, they get together once a year and they have the Conker Championships. Them guys took it to the next level, basically.
If you fancy yourself as a bit of a contender in the world of Conkers, get your son down to Northamptonshire Village and show him who's boss. And lose his night. That's perfect course, mate. And last one. This one is mental. Right, this one, I want to know where the hell this is happening because this one, it says Devon, but I never heard of this one before, so I'm interesting. The worm charming competition. Worm.
Charming. Those two words don't sound like they should go together, but they do. The idea, maybe you've heard of snake charming, but worm charming. Oh, blimey, there's so many people as well. I just looked at a picture. I'm in shock. Well, the idea is in Devon, everybody gets like a one meter square of land. It's like a piece of land, right? And you get five minutes for the worming up. Worming up. It's a...
It's his own expression. It's not far from where I lived. I don't believe I never even heard of this town. There's a reason they tried to black it off the map, I guess.
Like, I'm doing stupid stuff like this. It's literally just down the road. They get the worming up where they get five minutes to do whatever they want to get the worms to come out of the ground. Apparently, they're not allowed to, like, dig it up or put... hazardous materials on the ground or something but they can do anything they want to kind of get the worms to come up out of the ground and then they've got 15 minutes to
to gather as many worms as possible. Whoever gets the most worms from their square bit of land is the worm charming champion. Let me get this one more time. They can't dig. They can't touch the surface. They can touch the surface, but they can't, like, disturb it and they can't put chemicals. But, like, they can hit the ground or, like, shout at the worms. Like, come here, it's dinner time! Or whatever it is they do together.
worms to come out of the ground. I don't know. Play a flute or something. I can't even imagine how it would work. Does this actually... A tactic or something. There'll be some secret technique to getting worms to come out of the ground. they can do whatever they want for five minutes and then they have to collect the most worms as humanly possible in 15 minutes and then they judge
Congratulations, Mr. Smith. You gathered the most worms today. You're the champion. Now let's put them all back. This is so British, the way that this is set up. Let me just read you a paragraph from the website. There's a website, which is crazy. Come and join in the fun. No experience necessary. Just register your team of three. So there's three people in a team.
You have a charmer. It's actually a charmerer, it says. A pickerer and a counterer. I think that's done on purpose. That wouldn't be the extra ER in the end of all of those. It's just a joke. Yeah. at Worm HQ near the Georgian. Near the Georgian, the pub. So it's obviously a very professional thing before the midday deadline. And there's... There's separate categories as well. That's awesome. So it doesn't matter your age. We're cater for all. Shut up. Baby worm charming event.
Start them young. Just £5 a team, is that just a fiver? Me, you and Mike next year, what are you saying? I'm not going all the way to England for that, but... that's still in that is very come laden with your potions contraptions and sense of adventure sense of adventure you're getting worms out at ground you're not taking one ring to Mordor oh
But be aware, you know, you said about the rule of, like, it can't be poisonous. But be aware, the international judges, like, come on, this is a small, really small village in Devon. We'll ask you to sample any magic concoctions you're planning to pour on your one-yard, one-meter-by-meter, whatever, the plot. Better land.
So you can't take any poisonous things because you have to drink it. Sample, as in drink it? Yeah, so it's to stop people from taking poison. Using bleach or something. Mate, oh my word. British people are mental sometimes. Like, we're so serious and then the one day a year they let the people out of the asylum. They do stuff like this. Like, what are we going to do this year? Let's charm some worms out at ground. Like...
No other country is this mental, I'm sure. Well, mental in different ways. Honestly, looking at some of these festivals, I'm absolutely baffled. In 1986, sorry, I'm just obsessed with this one now. In 1986, the record in 15 minutes is 149 worms.
bloody hell that's a lot of worms in 15 minutes that's wild better get practicing mate we better get practicing but so there we go that's some weird events some weird British events and Stu's going to spend rest of the day on that website I've got a feeling oh there's a Worm Charming podcast of course there is that's epic that's where you go next after this one
podcast bloody hell anyway there's a podcast for everything nowadays and speaking of podcast don't forget to follow us if you're new here you know we pop up every Friday with some interesting stuff about England and you'll learn some English and practice some listening while you're at it so make sure you follow or leave a rating or whatever it is. Let's do what we're talking about next week.
It's a mystery. It's a special episode that I haven't decided yet. Well, it is decided. You just haven't read the bloody sheet, obviously. Oh, next episode is about going to the pub. Oh, even Stu's surprised. i knew that i knew that going to the pub yeah 100 the next episode is going to the pub what will you do at the pub why do we go to the pub so frequently and um
And yeah, all of the delicious snacks. Role in the society as well, I guess. Role in the society, yeah. Especially out in the more countryside. It's a big part of your local community. So we'll talk about all that next week. But thanks for joining me today, Stu. No worries. I'm excited to see you next week. And I'll see you next week. See ya. Ciao, ciao.