This is not a word of a lie. It really is. Yes really...you couldnt make it up!
Up there in darkest deepest Finland they really know how to live it up in the few short days of summer. The winters are long up there and for extended periods of time there is nothing to do at all but play scrabble, some even spend their evenings stuffing the carcasses of dead moose's to while away the long hours. So once the sun makes its way over the horizon in the brief but glorious summer, they all go mad with staggering amounts of frivolous frivolity, drinking laudable amounts of vodka and indulging in tut tut raucous behaviour...its wildly terrible so it is.
So this brings me to the Wife Carrying Championship as featured by Radio 4 today.
The rules are fairly simple...
you need a wife, anyones wife will do, it doesnt have to be your own.
you have to carry her for 250 metres up hill down dale and through waist high water ( you can see why the rules state that you DONT have to carry your own wife, you can look around for the slimmest available!)
All assemble then on the start line and set off at breakneck speed until you reach the winning post...exhausted, but happy that you have been up close and intimate with someone elses wife. Which always has a bit more of a dangerous thrill about it!!
What you get if you win Gawd knows. Perhaps its a moose steak dinner for two on the Arctic Circle.
And you thought we were having summer fun in Dover...not a bit of it.
ouch oh that hurts........
