Quirky Event of the Week: Olney Pancake Race

Shrove Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday, is the day before lent which usually involves a lot of pastry eating in many Christian countries. In Sweden they eat semlor, in Denmark it’s Fastelavnsboller  and in the UK they eat Pancakes. But in the little town of Olney in North Buckinghamshire, Pancake Day is a little bit different. Because every year, they organize a Pancake Race where local ladies dress up in traditional housewife attire and run with a frying pan through the streets of Olney. The runners start outside The Bull on Olney Market Place and then run down to the parish church of St.Peter and St.Paul in Church Lane. After the church warden has rung the “Pancake Bell” the runners need to toss the pancake in the pan and the winner have to toss it again at the finish. After the run, everyone joins in for a Shriving Service in the Parish Church.

The race has been run since 1445. But since 1950, the event has become international. At the same time as the race in Olney, the town of Liberal, Kansas in the US organizes the same race. After finish, a transatlantic call is made between Liberal and Olney, and when times have been compared, the international winner is declared.

If you want to see the housewives of Olney run through the streets with frying pans, you should head to Olney on the 16 February. The race starts at 11.55am, but from 10.30am you can take part in some family entertainment to warm up before the race. 

Please visit Olneys website for more information on the event and how to get there.  For further information on what to do in Northamtonshire when you’re there, click here.  

- Towe -

Blur reunion on DVD

I remember when I was 16 years old and got permission to go to Copenhagen with my friend and my younger sister to see my favourite band perform. I remember thinking my mom was mad for letting us go all that way on our own, but I didn’t care at the moment, because I was going to see Blur for the first time ever and I was over the moon!!

This was back in 1997, Song 2 was constantly playing in the radio and I knew all the songs from the other albums by heart. Now, over 10 years later, the British music phenomenon is releasing a DVD named “No Distance Left to Run”. The DVD contains a documentary about the band and live recordings from their reunion performance at Hyde Park in 2009.

If you want to remember all the great songs and see their music videos again, visit Blurs official You Tube-channel. The DVD is due to be released on February 15 2010. For further information on the release, please visit Blurs website.

Enjoy!
- Towe -

New series: Quirky Event of the week 2010

As many of you may know, we’ve had a feature called “Team of the week”, which basically meant that we every week posted some information and images on one team from the Premier League. This ended with Stoke being the last team of the week, the day after Christmas.

So what do we do now, we thought, grinding our teeth and ripping out our hair… Well, we said – Why not do a new series of the week? But this time , let’s do a “Quirky Event of the week”. This feature will not be every week. There may be many quirky events in the UK, but they are not evenly spread out across the weeks. So you simply have to put up with us doing as we please in this matter. And now that we’ve solved that little issue, let’s present the first quirky event of the year:

ST IVES FEAST AND HURLING OF THE SILVER BALL

So, what is this then, you might ask. Well, every year on the first Monday after the 3rd of February, the Mayor of the town of St Ives, through out a silver ball from the wall of the Parish Church. Once the ball is caught by a member of the crowd, the game is on. The contenders then compete for the ball through the beaches and streets of St Ives. The winner is the one that can take the ball to the Mayor on the strike of noon at the Guildhall. When the winner has received the reward of five shillings, the local councilors then throw pennies down from the balcony of the Guildhall for the children below to collect.

Do you want to compete for the silver ball? Then visit St Ives on the 8th of February. For more information, check out Visit Cornwalls website.

- Towe -

A family friendly hotel in London

The website TripAdvisor is a page where you can read what other travellers have thought about their accommodation. This year has The TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Awards for “The UK’s most family friendly hotel”  gone to The Luna Simone Hotel in London, which even makes it into the World’s Top Ten Family list. Impressive!

This hotel is located close to Victoria Station and Pimlico. An ideal location for those who travel from Stansted Airport by bus and Gatwick Airport by train.

www.lunasimonehotel.com

 /Pratkvarnen

Bosse, the Whisky Doctor

Bosse ”Bildoktorn” Andersson is known to the Swedish TV audience for his enthusiasm for cars. Bosse also has another passion – whisky. VisitBritain meet him for a chat about his new book – Whiskyresan (the Whisky Journey). We are proud to present yet another anglophile interview. Thank you for your participation Bosse! (Interview in Swedish)

//Johannes Karlsson

Holmes to get a Golden Globe!

Yesterday,  Robert Downey Jr. won a Golden Globe for Best Actor ( Comedy or Music category), for his role as Sherlock Holmes in the film with the same name. Huge Congratulations!

If you haven’t noticed yet, we’ve dedicated our own campaign sites, all in the honour of the new movie about our favourite private detective.   The websites offer more or less everything you ever wanted to know about Sherlock Holmes!  So go on – have a look and enjoy pictures and film-clips from the film or find your way through Sherlock Holmes world and see where you can go if you want to follow his footprints:

Denmark

Finland

Norway

Sweden

//Cathrine

A Golfers Paradise, part 5

Måns Zelmerlöw went to Scotland and fell in love with the people, the nature and of course – the golf. Here’s his last post from the trip. (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4)

Monday
12.40. Tee-off at The Old Course. I hauled out the driver again. Don’t duff, don’t duff, don’t duff, not now…An audience and a starter follows your every move, judging…But hey, I managed to get the ball in the air and off we went.

For the first time in my life I had a caddie. I didn’t think it was going to make a difference but I had to try it. It was all worth it. From my perspective I played a round of dream golf and managed to finish the course on my handicap.

Famous bridge at the Old Course

It’s a great course and the feeling to swing your way out of the same bunkers as you seen the professionals handle on TV is a love story. I managed a birdie on the 16^th followed by cheering from four hardened caddies and my hear was pounding when my driver at the 17^th just barely finds its way over the hotel and you know that you can reach the green on two. You can feel hundreds of people looking at you when you cross the world famous bridge between the 17^th and the 18^th and right here you realize that you want to come back again and again. St. Andrews is a golfers paradise.

//Måns

A Golfers Paradise, part 4

Måns Zelmerlöw went to Scotland and fell in love with the people, the nature and of course – the golf. Here’s his fourth post from the trip. (part 1, part 2, part 3)

Sunday
Today we got the message that we had been waiting for. It was time to play the Old Course…on Monday. We had planned to go back home this afternoon but this opportunity was to good to miss out on.

An early tee-off at the Castle Course at the break of dawn was captivating. It was probably the most beautiful nature scenery I’ve ever seen! The course was really hard with many blind holes. My game was dreadful, but the view made up for it and I kept smiling. If you ever come to Scotland you simply must play on the Castle Course!

After holed out at the 18th with seventeen points in my pocket we hurried over to the Dukes. We wanted to play another 18 holes and we got there in a golf car to manage this before sun down. This same evening we ended up at the hotel bar, tasting whisky.

/Måns

Our pub expert tells her story

Remember the pub expert competition we had in Norway a couple of months ago? Here, the winner, Hanne Diana, tells her story about her whole week of pub crawling in Newcastle:
My name is Hanne Diana, I am 22 years old and I was the lucky winner of the NewcastleGateshead “pubexpert” competition. Winning this competition meant I got to travel to Newcastle for one week, visit lots of pubs, and when I got home I would write a pubguide for other Norwegian tourists. Who would not want a job like that?! I was so happy to be the winner, and I also got to bring a person with me – To all my friends disbelief I chose to bring my mom! We had a GREAT week, and here is a little info on what we filled our days with:

There was so much action going on the seven days we were down there, but I think I will start by telling you a little bit about our very first day: We met up with our “guide” for the week – Alistair Gilmore: A lovely man originally from Scotland, but living in Newcastle. He has written three books about beer and food, and so I think it is safe to say that this man knows his beer! Our first beer of the day we cracked open at a pub called “The sun in”. The funny thing about this pub is that it takes you back to the early 1900s and 1800s, even the people who work there are wearing clothes from way back when, so obviously that made it quite a funny, and not to mention a very different experience. After this we got to visit this little local brewery called “The Stables”. This was my first time at a brewery so it was quite interesting, and not to mention I learned a lot about the production of beer. Coming out of there, of course – I felt like a beer expert (still do).

As this day went by we visited a lot of different pubs, both in the city centre as well as a couple ones outside town. I got to drink som great beer, experience some great pubs, and we met up with plenty of very nice people. It was a great day and I thought Newcastle was a lovely place to be. The following days we checked out some more pubs, tasted different beers, and saw more of Newcastle. Besides that we also got to do some other interesting things: Like visiting “The Journal”. “The Journal” is one of Newcastle’s biggest local newspapers and for me who wants to be a journalist this could not have been more ideal. Alistair used to work there as a journalist, and even though he does not work there everyday anymore he still has his weekly column in the paper. This morning I got to talk to different people about their job, sit in at a news conference – basically, had the best time!

That same day we also got to see “Glenn McCrory`s international school of boxing”, wich was very fun. Glenn MCrory is a previous boxer, who won the world champion in 1989, and he now has his own gym. We got to chat with him, and to see him work. I have to  say that both me and mum developed a little crush.. – He was not just nice and charming you see, but also tall and big and had wonderful eyes. During this week Alistair also took us to a new opening, a design show. There I got to see some funny looking furniture, drink some nice wine, and I had a good night. All toghether our week in Newcastle could not have been any better, and besides experiening many great pubs and beers, we got to see an amazing city. I loved it.
Hanne Diana

Sounds like a great week! Please send us your personal tips, perhaps you have been pub crawling in another British city? And if you’re going to Oxford, make sure to try out their ultimate pub crawl, I sure did!

Have a Happy New Year everyone and I wish you all the best for 2010!

- Hanne -