I first became aware of Ben Fogle when he took part in the BBC reality show Castaway 2000, which followed a group of thirty-six people marooned on the Scottish island of Taransay for a year, starting on 1st January 2000. This was a social experiment aimed at creating a fully self-sufficient community within a year. Since that time I have come across Ben as a TV presenter and explorer - and a chap with a sense of humour. A bit of a toff in some ways, for he went not to just one but to two private schools, but a pleasant kind of cove and not like the toffs you see wingeing away on the back benches in the House of Commons. I quite take to Ben.
Shortly before Christmas I bought some books as presents at Waterstones and was told by a kindly young lady who served me that I had sufficient points to spend a few pounds on a book for myself. It was then that I spotted that Ben had written a new book with the intriguing title English - A story of Marmite, Queuing and Weather.
I finished the book last evening and it is a winner, that's for sure. If you wish to borrow my copy, Cedric, you are welcome to do so, but I will require you to sign an undertaking that you will return the book to me within 21 days or pay me the cover price so the I may purchase another copy. It is the sort of book to be dipped into on a wet winter's afternoon or a hot summer's day. Or if you wake up at three in the morning, as I often do these days.
There is much I could tell you about the book - but you will have to borrow my copy (on the above terms) or buy your own. However, there is one chapter dealing with English sports - such as cricket, ferret legging and bandy, and the Cotswold Olimpic Games which were revived in 1951 to be run as the World Shin-kicking Championships.
Ben writes: "My personal favourite English sport is one that was only invented twenty years ago - Extreme Ironing. 'EI', as it is known, is very simple: people take an ironing board to an extreme or unusual location and . . . iron an item of clothing."
A man called Phil Shaw invented the sport. He arrived home in 1997 in Leicester after work to a mountain of ironing and decided it was too dull to iron indoors, so took it into his garden. When his housemate came home he asked what Phil what he was doing and Phil said "Extreme Ironing".
There is a German branch of the Extreme Ironing Bureau and the first World Championships were held in 2002, with eighty teams from ten countries who navigated an obstacle course, pressing boxers shorts and blouses while scaling a climbing wall, hanging from a moss-covered tree branch and squeezing through the bonnet of a car. When judging the ironing counts for 60 points, style for 40 and speed for 20.
There are now some 1,500 extreme ironists practising worldwide and some teams have received corporate backing. Calls are now being made for the sport's inclusion in the Olympics. "If you can have synchronised swimming and curling, I think extreme ironing has as much to offer," Phil has said. And I am with him all the way, especially up that climbing wall!
Ben's view - to which I would fully subscribe - is that whilst EI is not as physically challenging as some sports, the difficulty lies 'in the extreme embarrassment of ironing in a street in front of large crowds'.
Now why am I telling you this, you may well ask? And it is a very good question. The year 2018 will see the Thirty-eighth consecutive St. Peter's Aldborough Hatch Flower Festival and Craft Market on 23rd, 24th and 25th June in the County of Essex in England's Green and Pleasant Land. There is to be a meeting very shortly when plans will be laid for the event.
Now I will stick my neck out here - as I have done on a few occasions in my long and merry life, only to have to bounced about or hit with a very heavy hammer and, would you believe it, even kicked. I fear that the entertainment on the Green on Saturday and Sunday of the Festival Weekend needs some spicing up. Let me hasten to add that this is in no way a criticism of the excellent folk who have organised the show and have danced, sung, played music and otherwise entertained us on that Green for all those 37 years - some of whom have gone on to national and even international stardom on TV and stage. No Sir! Never let it be said. But all the same a bit spicing up could draw in even greater crowds - and we can do with the money.
And so my plan, which I will put to the planning group for 2018, is that we should hold the First Ever Aldborough Hatch Extreme Ironing Championships. Those entering would be required to bring their own ironing boards and irons, with flexible extension leads. The items to be washed would be restricted to tea towels, which would have been boiled for a minimum of ten minutes in best quality washing powder and stain remover, before being machine washed for the requisite time, and dried in the fresh open air of Aldborough Hatch, but not too much so that ironing may be done to perfection with no creases.
The Championships would be in two parts. The first would be stationary on the Green and be judged on neatness and folding techniques. The second part would require the participants to cover an obstacle course around the churchyard, carrying their ironing board, iron and tea towels, stopping at fixed points to iron and climbing over a variety of obstacles. I will devise a suitable points system for this cannot be left to any Tom, Dick or Harry - or Ermintrude, Hilary or Mavis. What fun!
I will personally invite Ben Fogle to attend in the role of Chief Senior Judge. Should Ben be unable to accept our invitation due to other more pressing engagements, such as scaling Everest or rowing down the River Nile in nothing but a pith helmet, I will appoint myself in the role of Chief Senior Judge, for I now have something of a reputation as a tea-towel-ironer.
I will not put this proposition to the 2018 Flower Festival Planning Group in person, but via this message, for I fear for my safety as I have not been very well lately and there are some folk who would chase me across Fairlop Waters with a mop and bucket for being so forward and cheeky!
But let St. Peter's grasp the nettle with both hands, I say. Have the courage to be bold in these turbulent times when we could soon be jumping in unison off the White Cliffs of Dover or cowering under our duvets if the Man-Across-The-Pond pushes the wrong button.
Over to you Batman and Batwoman! Go for it!
