The Great Yorkshire Pudding Race

Well, it was bound to happen. Even I can’t maintain high dudgeon and moral righteousness endlessly. So when Susan sent me the email, I was secretly relieved. Enough Connecticut, enough gun control! Time to read about The Yorkshire Pudding Boat Race.

Which takes place in a little town of Brawby in North Yorkshire. Which has in turn a pub—well, wouldn’t it?—with a view of the village pond. And there, Simon Thackray in a questionable state of sobriety or ebriation (lump it, computer!), dreamed up the idea of a Yorkshire pudding race.

Well, if you have an idea like that, you gotta do it—anybody could see that. So he went off to the village baker, who put together five giant Yorkshire puddings—each with enormous quantities of eggs, flour, and milk (sorry for the lack of precision for which this blog is famed, but the damned Internet is screwing around again…).

Oh, and yacht varnish on the outside.

Now then, a nut with an idea is nothing exciting. What I love is the rest of the gang, which instantly goes along with the idea. The baker obligingly bakes the giant Yorkshire puddings. A poet friend composes a half-true, half-fictional saga, which he declaims around town. The little kids don their life jackets and set to paddle.

Does anybody at any point say, “hey, what the hell is this? Are you nuts? I’m not letting Billy sail in that damn thing! Get a job!”

Oh, by the way, the race has a beginning but no end.  

Well, things seem saner in Europe. Just look at the Spaniards! A Madrid advertising agency has just made Cecilia Giménez—you remember, the 80-year old grandmother who touched up that fresco of Jesus to such notable effect—its chief creative director.

Makes sense, when you think of it. She did catapult to the world stage, doña Cecilia, with that work of charity, which evil-minded people called Ecce Mono.

Well, she certainly can stir around a bit. She’s on Twitter! She has a Facebook page! And now she’s selling on eBay.  Here it is:

Not bad, hunh? Reminds me of a jigsaw puzzle, somehow. And it’s definitely true that landscape painting seems more her forte than portraiture. At any rate, it can be yours for around a thousand bucks, which the good doña Cecilia will donate to a Catholic charity.

Not too into giving a thousand bucks to the Catholic Church?

Right—skip it. Use the dough to go the next Yorkshire Pudding Boat Race….