"Since 1612: straw in the socks, hands on each other's shoulders, and the aim is to kick shins until someone falls. Judges wear top hats."

World Shin-Kicking Championships

"On a Willaston school field every June, charmers coax worms to the surface with garden forks and music inside a marked plot, eighteen solemn rules and a world record over five hundred worms in half an hour."

World Worm Charming Championships

"Witcham's village fete has crowned a world pea shooting champion since 1971, and some marksmen now fit laser sights and gyroscopes to their twelve inch tubes."

World Pea Shooting Championship

"Around two hundred garden snails race outward from a central circle on a damp Norfolk cloth, bred in a county that suits them, to the starter's cry of ready, steady, slow."

World Snail Racing Championships

"The 225th running: the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society meets in a North York Moors village to weigh berries that have been grown in secret since March, and the champion is measured in drams, not centimetres."

Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Show

"A peat bog trench in mid-Wales. A wetsuit. A snorkel. Two lengths. No conventional swimming strokes allowed. The world comes to watch."

Bog Snorkelling Championship

"Grown adults in fancy dress grapple for two minutes in a pool of cold Lancashire gravy on August bank holiday, scored as much on showmanship as on pins, all for the local hospice."

World Gravy Wrestling Championships

"Crabs (crab apples, thrown from a cart) in the morning, greasy pole and hound trailing through the day, and in the evening competitors push their faces through a horse collar to achieve the most grotesque expression possible, since 1267."

Egremont Crab Fair and World Gurning Championships

"A Northamptonshire village green, hundreds of competitors in silly hats, one conker on a string. The 61st running of the most earnest competition you will ever attend in a field."

World Conker Championships

"Hundreds of Uppies and Doonies wrestle a leather ball through the streets of Kirkwall on Christmas Day and New Year's Day."

Kirkwall Ba' Game

"Runners race horse-and-rider over 22 miles of Welsh hill country, a wager born in a pub argument."

Man versus Horse Marathon

"After a hare pie is scrambled, two villages battle to carry small barrels across streams in a no-rules contest."

Hallaton Bottle Kicking and Hare Pie Scramble

"Up'ards and Down'ards play a two-day game of football across three miles of town and river, goals set at old mills."

Ashbourne Royal Shrovetide Football

"A huge leather ball is fought over along Long Street for two hours, a Shrove Tuesday game dating to 1199."

Atherstone Ball Game

"Women in aprons and headscarves race from the market place to the church flipping pancakes, run since 1445."

Olney Pancake Race

"Runners carry heavy woolsacks up and down the one-in-four Gumstool Hill, recalling the Cotswold wool trade."

Tetbury Woolsack Races

"Teams roll wooden cheeses down the old Great North Road in the village that gave the cheese its name."

Stilton Cheese Rolling

"Shin-kicking, tug of war and a torchlit procession on Dover's Hill, games first held in 1612."

Robert Dover's Cotswold Olimpicks

"A small leather ball is passed through a bull ring and fought across the village in a game over 1000 years old."

Sedgefield Shrove Tuesday Ball Game

"Two parishes play football across pasture below the castle, the ball piped to the field and won by carrying it home."

Alnwick Shrovetide Football

"A vast rolling rugby scrum, the sway, pushes a leather hood to one of four pubs, a custom said to be 700 years old."

Haxey Hood