Game on for Rednecks
QUESTION What sporting competitions took place in the Summer Redneck Games?
Radio Dj Mac davis of station Y-96 in East dublin, Georgia, came up with the Summer Redneck Games as an antidote to t he 1 9 9 6 olympic Games in nearby atlanta.
‘ The media kept saying that the olympics were going to be run by a bunch of rednecks,’ said davis. ‘So we figured if that’s what the world expects, we’ll give it to them.’
in the U.S., redneck is a derogatory term associated with Southern, rural, white people. The term came from farmers having a red neck caused by sunburn from hours working in the fields.
Participants willingly embraced redneck ‘ c ul t ure’ . Spectators wore Confederate flag apparel and munched on fried pickles, fried oreos, fried chicken and blooming onion — which is battered and deep-fried.
a great deal of beer was consumed while chilling out in the mudpit swimming pool. The contestants competed for trophies topped with crushed Bud Light cans.
The Summer Redneck Games featured classic rural pastimes: watermelon seed spitting, mudpit belly- flopping and bobbing for pigs’ feet.
one popular event involved contestants flipping toilet seats at a loo plunger anchored in the ground.
other sports included the cigarette flip, big hair and wet T- shirt contests, bug zapping by spitball and dumpster diving, which is looking in bins and skips for anything that can be sold.
a particular favourite was the armpit serenade in which contestants of all ages tried to make a tune using this part of their body while the announcer held a microphone in close proximity.
‘So many people, so much beer, so few teeth, i couldn’t ask for more,’ said one nameless participant.
The Redneck Games ran until 2012, but sadly were cancelled following environmental concerns over a nearby contaminated creek.
Derek Lewis, Cromer, Norfolk.
QUESTION What are the two most distant populated places in the same time zone?
Though China is almost as wide as the U.S., the whole country is in just one time zone, Beijing time, which is GMT+8.
The two most distantly populated towns are Fuyuan to the East and akto in the West. They are 2,905 miles apart as the crow flies or 3,717 miles by road, which is a 60-hour trip.
Fuyuan is east of the Ussuri River, which i s the i nternational boundary with Russia. akto is at least 50 miles from the border with Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
in terms of North to South and ignoring antarctic r esearch s t ati ons, Qaanaaq, popularly known as Thule, is the most northerly populated town in Greenland (GMT+3).
it is 9,150 miles from Puerto Williams, on Navarino island i n the Beagle Channel in Chile’s far south, part of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago.
Tim Butcher, Manchester.
QUESTION Was the career of 1960s pop star P. J. Proby ruined after his trousers split on stage?
Further to previous answers, i was a member of The Mike Cotton Sound, who were P. J. Proby’s backing group at the infamous trouser-splitting concert.
Sunday concerts were monitored by the local watch committee, who deemed this incident a step too far. The curtain was pulled, leaving P. J. Proby in front of the curtains and the bemused band grinding to a musical halt.
The concert was part of a nationwide tour, which also starred Cilla Black. it continued, but though P. J. Proby took to the stage in civic halls, he was not allowed to perform at odeon cinemas.
he was substituted by Tom Jones, who would soon become a star after the release of his first hit, it’s Not Unusual, and david Bowie and the Manish Boys, who had yet to reveal their potential.
Working with P. J. Proby was so much fun as his act was heavily influenced by the great singer James Brown.
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