Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain under the Microscope. 歡迎你又回到《閑話英倫》，hello安瀾。

Hi Lulu, hi everyone.

You know what, we've been talking about all these sorts of very big topics about life in Britain. And now it’s approaching Summer, I'm kind of in a more light hearted mood, let's talk about something more light hearted.

OK. In our last episode, we talked a little bit about eccentricity and being quirky. So I thought today let's talk about some festivals and some quite unusual customs.

Unusual customs. Because when you say festivals, first of all I think of all these traditional festivals, a lot of those we talked about before like Christmas, you know like Easter, a lot of them religious.

No no no. We're going to be talking about some traditional, but very quirky festivals.

OK. I truly don't know anything about that. I have no idea what you're going to talk about, shoot, hit me.

OK. Well let's start, first of all, with an unusual custom, this is something we call Morris dancing.

Morris dancing, Morris dancing. I think I've seen it in some very old British comedy. What is that?

Well, Morris dancing is a type of traditional dance, actually it was a fertility dance.

Fertility. Fertility是指生育, sort of like a traditional belief like, dance like that, then you get babies.

Yes, but also to ward off evil and bring good luck.

Yeah. It is a bit bizarre; it's done with men, men are the ones that do the dancing, they dance with bells around their legs, flowers in their hair, and they hit sticks and wave handkerchiefs in the air as part of the dance.

Oh, you know what after today's recording, I'm definitely going to go online and check out some clips, video clips of Morris dancing.

That's it. It can be quite popular in some areas. They have competitions for Morris dancing as well. They also have variations of Morris dancing so some of them have tried to do it to techno to...

People were trying to keep up with time.

Yeah yeah.

But always men.

Always men.

Um, very interesting. I just can't really picture, you know, flowers in the hair, bells around legs and sticks and handkerchiefs.

Wow, I think what we can do is, I think we should definitely add some photos of this.

Definitely. So check out the photos in today's keyword session. All right. So that's Morris dancing. Any other customs?

Let's go a little bit onto festivals, annual events. So I think before we talked a little bit about Shrove Tuesday.

Um, I don't believe we have.

Ok well, very quickly Shrove Tuesday is the day before the start of Lent. So Lent is a 40 day fast, but Shrove Tuesday is also known as pancake day.

I thought this whole idea is very religious.

Originally it was, for example, Mardi Gras in America in New Orleans is also on the same day.

But in Britain it's known as pancake day because it's traditional to eat pancakes on that day.

When you say pancake，is it the idea of like, because I only know American pancakes which are thick，is it like that？

British pancakes are a little bit like a crepe.

Oh so it is more like our 煎餅。

Yes, but we eat them sweet.

Oh, you eat them sweet. OK so is it about eating?

And also pancake racing.

What is pancake racing?

Parts of the tradition is you have a race and people in that race, they run while flipping pancakes in the frying pan.

I'm assuming the frying pan is cold.

Yes.

Otherwise there will be a bunch of people with really hot frying pans trying to hurt each other.

Yes. So you have to get to the end of the races, whoever wins, whoever is first, wins the race, and whoever gets there without losing the pancake.

It's just one pancake.

Just one pancake, that you are constantly flipping as you’re running.

It's a bit like, acrobatic, if you think about it.

It's quite tricky, quite difficult.

Is this just parts of the UK?

There are some places that are particularly famous for it, but pretty much you can find it all over the UK.

One very important thing, what do you win then? Maybe the pancake.

Just the pancake I guess.

I think it's the spirit of the competition really.

Exactly. It's a fun tradition.

Um anything else?

We've been talking a little bit about food, so we can talk about cheese rolling.

Oh this one I've actually heard of. Once I was sharing with my students about weird holidays around the world. Um, tell us about the cheese rolling then.

This is in a part of England called Gloucestershire.

Gloucestershire.

And part of the tradition is that a big round of cheese, so it's a round shape, but just a whole cheese.

Yes. It's thrown down a hill, and then you have to run to catch it.

You are catching up with your cheese.

Yes. The first person to grab the cheese wins the cheese.

So this is a hill. Is it steep?

It is very steep. It's actually very popular but quite dangerous.

I couldn't imagine people chasing their cheese, cheese runs down the hill. There will be lots of them.

Yeah. It's not that uncommon to get broken bones.

Unnn...And shall I ask what is the point of cheese rolling?

So you can win the cheese.

I thought that was your cheese to begin with.

No no no. That's the community cheese that they throw down the hill.

So maybe if you can get the cheese, you get the cheese.

There you go.

I see. I know every country has their own strange traditions, but this is a bit of an interesting one.

So talking about racing. This is a particularly famous race in England. It's in a place called Dorking, which is in Southern England. It's actually quite close to where I come from.

OK. What are they chasing this time?

Well they’re not chasing anything. It's more about what they carring.

What are they carrying?

Their wives.

Wives carrying?

Yeah.

I've heard of about them in Scandinavian countries like northern Europe.

Yeah, but originally it came from England, or so we believe.

Ok so you carry your wife.

Yes

How do you carry her? On your back or?

You carry your wife on your back, and then you have to run. The first person or the winning couple gets ￡100 and a barrel of ale.

Ale is just English beer.

Yeah, it's a type of English beer. The wives have to weigh at least 50kg.

Ah so if you're too slim, I was just going to ask, if then wouldn’t it be unfair because some wives would be a lot bigger or a lot smaller than other wives. So you have to weigh at least 50kg.

At least. But actually it's not that unfair because the man with the heaviest wife gets a pound of sausages.

The version I've heard is that whoever wins the race, you get beer, the same weight as your wife.

Oh yeah.

That would be another version.

That's another version. But obviously this is Britain and we like to be a bit fair, we don't like, it's all about the sport really. So even the loser gets something.

What do they get?

They get a can of dog food and some instant noodles.

I don't really see the logic here.

It is quite popular a lot of people do race with their wives.

Is it just with wives or can you actually invite for example of one of your female friends?

No, I think it has to be wives.

Has to be wives.

Or at least partner.

Partner maybe girlfriend.

Yeah.

I see. But I mean if I were in that situation, I would hate if my partner is trying to carry me around and just to win some...

Barrel of ale.

...just to win some drink.

Yeah.

OK. So today Alan has shared with us four kind of eccentric or even bizarre traditions in the UK. We do have a lot of those in China as well. So for those of you who are listening to this show if you have ever experienced any eccentric and quirky holiday, festivals, customs, leave us a comment in the comment section, we would love to read them.

Absolutely. So until next time.

We'll see you next time, bye.

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