World Nettle-Eating Championship

Strange story: World Nettle-Eating Championship

Source: Speak Up

Speakers: Rachel Roberts (British Accent)

Chunk Rolando (American Accent)

Source: www.speakup.com.br (edition 253)

The British are famously eccentric: what other nation would invent a World Neattle Eating Championship? Every year people come to The Bottle Inn - a pub in Marshwood, Dorset - in order to take part.

Contestants sit before enormous piles of stinging nettles, and have one hour to strip the leaves and eat as many as possible; apparently, there's a technique which stops the plants from stinging your lips and tongue. Contestants Matt Thurtan explain: " Food  the Leaf, get it past your lips, and swallow quickly". The winner is decided by the total length of stripped nettle sterms; 2004 winner Simon Sleigh holds the World record of 22 metres. The event began in 1986 when local farmer Alex Williams made an unusual challenge: if anyone could produce a taller nettle than his own, then he would eat it. Unfortunately for him, he lost.

AMERICAN STYLE

Americans may dispute that Britain has a monopoly on ecentricity. Visitors to Spivey's Corner in North Carolina will discover that this tiny village, with a population of only 49, is the home of theNational Hollerin' Contest. "Holler" is another word for "Shout", but contestants says that hollering is an art and one of the olders form of communication. In the past, farmers would shout out greeting and warmings to neighbours, sometimes several miles away. Hollering is a dying art which the contest organisers hope to keep alive; 10000 people come to Spivers Corner every June in order to hear the unique techniques of Sampson County's hollers.