Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-36756522-20180829153815

Nobody does eccentricity better than the British. Whether it is their obsessive gardening, ice cream cone hats for attending a horse race, devotees of the queue and summer holidays at a rainy seaside, Christmas pudding and marmite, eccentricity is a British tradition. No one beats the British for odd or whimsical behaviour and perhaps, more than geographical location, that is what separates them from the rest of the world!

ABC of British Eccentricity:

A is for Ascot, a national institution and the centrepiece of the British social calendar.

B is for Bog Snorkelling, a sports event that takes place in Wales.

C is for Christmas pudding, only a couple of spoonfuls a year are enough!

'Ascot'''

Royal Ascot, the horse race held in June every year, a unique event in the summer social calendar, steeped in tradition, heritage and pageantry dating back almost three hundred years. It is without doubt the greatest race meeting in the world and a celebration of everything that is uniquely British. But, if Royal Ascot is the ultimate stage for the best racehorses in the world, why on earth do the public and the media concentrate on only one thing: Women’s hats and who has the most outrageous hat on the hat wearing festival of Ladies Day.

Bog snorkelling

Bog snorkelling an annual swimming world championship first held in 1985, that takes place in Wales. It is officially a sporting event where competitors have to complete two consecutive lengths in a 55 m water filled trench cut through a peat bog, in the shortest time possible.

Competitors must wear snorkels and flippers, and complete the course without using conventional swimming strokes, relying on flipper power alone. Wet suits are not compulsory, but are usually worn. The winner is entered in the Guinness Book of Records.

Christmas Pudding Quote by Charles Dickens

"Oh! All that steam! The pudding had just been taken out of the cauldron. Oh! That smell! The same as the one which prevailed on washing day! It is that of the cloth which wraps the pudding. Now, one would imagine oneself in a restaurant and in a confectioner's at the same time, with a laundry next door.”

Christmas pudding

Christmas pudding is a British dessert traditionally served on Christmas day. The pudding's origins can be traced back to the 1420s when meat was then kept in a pastry case along with dried fruits acting as a preservative. Who but the British could transform a way of preserving meat at the end of the season into an institutional dessert?

What do the British have to say about eccentricity?

“Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements.” (Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom)

I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird. (Paul McCartney)

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, bodog casino and moral courage which it contained. (John Stuart Mill)

There's something about being in the country that makes you stick out like a sore thumb – you're an anomaly. But in London there's always someone wilder and woollier. (Cornelia Parker, British artist)

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. (Bertrand Russell)

There's not much room for eccentricity in Hollywood, and eccentricity is what's sexy in people.(Rachel Weisz, British actress) 