Next up: Arse Blowing!

Okay, so I'm a bit behind on this, so to speak, but here's this year's calendar of events, starting with Arse Blowing.

(All dates are subject to change, so check before booking!)

Arse Blowing: 19 April
La Mascarade des Soufflaculs
Nontron, France

St. George's Day: 23 April
La Diada de Sant Jordi
Barcelona, Spain

May Day: 1 May
Padstow, Cornwall, UK

Hot Penny Throwing / Beating the Bounds: 21 May (tbc)
Oxford, England

Fire Dancing: 21 May
Anastenariá
Ayia Eleni and Langadas, Greece

Cheese Rolling: 25 May
Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire, England

Shin Kicking: 29 May
The Cotswold Olimpicks
Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire, England

Phallus Festival: 5–7 June (tbc)
Festa de Sao Goncalo
Amarante, Portugal

St. George vs. the Dragon: 7 June (Trinity Sunday)
Le Combat dit Lumecon
Mons, Belgium

Baby Jumping: 11-14 June (Corpus Christi weekend)
La Fiesta del Colacho
Castrillo de Murcia, Spain

Oil Wrestling: usually the last weekend in June
Edirne, Turkey

Rigor Mortis Procession: 29 July
Fiesta de Santa Marta de Ribarteme
San Xose de Ribarteme, Spain

Burry Man Day: 14 August (tbc)
South Queensferry, Scotland

The Virgin's Snakes: on and around 15 August
Markopoulo, Kefalonia, Greece

Bog Snorkelling: 31 August
Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, Wales

Matchmaking Festival: 28 August to 4 October
Lisdoonvarna, Ireland

Abbots Bromley Horn Dance: 7 September
Abbots Bromley, Staffordshire, England

Miracle of the Blood: 19 September
San Gennaro Festival
Naples, Italy

World Gurning Championships: 19 September
Egremont, Cumbria, England

Cowfighting: usually early October
Le Combat des Reines
Martigny, Switzerland

Faggot Cutting / Quit Rents Ceremony: October (exact date tbc)
London, England

Bonfire Night / Pope Burning: 5 November
Lewes, East Sussex, England

Sinterklaas and 'Black Pete': mid-November to 5 December
Amsterdam / rest of the Netherlands

Darkie Day (aka Mummers' Day): 26 December 2009 and 1 January 2010
Padstow, Cornwall, UK

The Haxey Hood: 5 January 2010
Haxey, Lincolnshire, England

Goat Tossing: 22 January 2010
Fiesta de San Vicente Martir
Manganeses de la Polvorosa, Spain

Rooster Run: 27 January 2010 (tbc)
Correr el Gallo
Guarrate, Spain

Wenches' Feast Day (Weiberfastnacht): 11 February 2010
Karneval in Beuel/Bonn, Germany

My bit for Obama-mania

Here's the article wot I wrote for Obama's inauguration.

Forget Dreams From My Father: Frederick Douglass' autobiography should be required reading in US history classes. I was ashamed to realize I'd never read it before.

You can check it out here.

Dark--uh, Mummer's Day in Cornwall

The event formerly known as Darkie Day will be celebrated in Padstow, Cornwall, on Boxing Day (26 December) and New Year's Day.

For my take on the event, check out the video below -- or even better read True Brits!

Happy Holidays to all!

JR

Hip Hip Hooray, it's the Burry Man's Day!

Just in time for Burry Man Day this Friday, I've finally produced a clip I've wanted to do for a long time: a time-lapse progression showing the transformation of a mild-mannered graphic designer into Scotland's very own Green Man.

As it happens, this year is John Nicol's 10th anniversary as the Burry Man, 'a role that becomes more of an honour each year,' he says.

This YouTube clip shows John being dressed as the local scapegoat before being led through the streets of South Queensferry outside Edinburgh to soak up the town's bad spirits, along with plenty of whisky:

You can read more about the Burry Man in this excerpt from my book, True Brits.

Or if you're in the area, you can go along to wish John well on the day.

Or, at the very least, be sure to raise a glass on Friday in his honour.

JR

Kirkpinar: No Greek Love Allowed

In honour of the annual Turkish Oil Wrestling Championships this month, here's an excerpt from my book, Tossers and Arseblowers.



You can't blame the gay fans, really.

What with all the swarthy young men in black leather breeches lubricating their half-naked opponents with olive oil and then wrestling them to their knees and ramming their hands down their pants, well, it was only a matter of time before Turkey's national sport found a camp following on the international scene.

Yet devotees of Oil Wrestling were horrified when photos of glistening, hard-bodied Turks wound up on homoerotic websites around the world.

A gay group calling itself the Bears of Turkey even started advertising a bus tour for foreigners to drool over the Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Championships, a semi-sacred event that dates back to the very foundations of Turkey.

As if Oil Wrestling didn't have enough problems already.

In recent years, Islamic hardliners have objected to the flesh-baring spectacle-particularly the 'hands-down-pants' hold-while doping scandals have undermined the sport's ultramacho image-surely Turkish wrestlers don't need to boost their sky-high testosterone levels!

Not to mention the occasional brawls-dozens of oiled-up Turks punching it out on the field-or, even worse, the lingering rumours (perpetuated by know-nothing outsiders) that the most Turkish of sports may have actually been invented by the Greeks as part of their ancient Olympic Games.

Throw in the fact that all this takes place on the cusp of the European Union, in a border town that used to be the Ottoman capital, against the current backdrop of Turkey's attempts to join the EU, and, well, there's only one reaction I could have: I've gotta go.

To read more, pick up a copy of Tossers & Arseblowers!

Gay Bears and the Cheek of It

Ryanair Magazine's run a feature on Tossers and Arseblowers this month, taking the latter part of the title literally.

And here's my latest YouTube video ahead of the Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Championships in July in Edirne:

Cheese Rolling and Baby Jumping: The Results

Great news from the annual Cheese Rolling in England: no one was killed.

As silly as it sounds, every year when it comes Cheese-Rolling time I actually find myself worrying that someone will get seriously injured in the race: all it would take is one fatality to end the centuries-old event.

Fortunately, there were no serious injuries this year -- though the winner of the first race was carried off on a spinal board.

The BBC also reports that no one was hurt during Baby Jumping in Spain over the weekend.

Here are some photos from Sky.

The Mirror's also put up a link to my Baby Jumping Video.