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Larry, The Downing Street Cat - Another odd sport!

I have unearthed yet another magnificent sporting pursuit, one that many of us may have practised in our younger days, usually when no one important was looking. Pea shooting. Paws up if you remember this one. Now, you might imagine that pea shooting is the sort of pastime that quietly disappeared sometime around the invention of indoor plumbing, but you would be quite wrong. In Britain, no activity is considered too peculiar to become competitive, and so it is that every year the World Pea Shooting Championship is held in the tiny Cambridgeshire village of Witcham. I find this deeply reassuring. The sport itself is refreshingly uncomplicated. Contestants stand twelve feet from a target roughly the size of a dinner plate. The target resembles a dartboard that has fallen upon difficult times and, in a masterstroke of engineering, is covered in wet putty. This ensures that successful peas remain attached to the board rather than continuing their journey into history. The rules are admirably simple. Peas that hit the board count. Peas that do not hit the board do not count. This places pea shooting among the easiest sports to understand since competitive sleeping. Points are awarded according to where the pea lands. A shot into the centre brings glory, admiration, and possibly a brief moment of local celebrity. A pea that lands somewhere near the edge brings fewer points and a thoughtful period of self-reflection. The peas are fired through tubes at a twelve-inch target, which gives the entire event the appearance of a scientific experiment being conducted by enthusiastic gardeners. One-half expects someone in a white coat to emerge and announce a breakthrough in legume propulsion. Here is Professor Patrick Barrie, a man who speaks about pea shooting with the calm authority normally reserved for nuclear physicists and airline pilots. As with all serious sporting contests, tensions can run surprisingly high. Competitors arrive carrying custom-made tubes and expressions suggesting they have spent many months preparing for this moment. They have studied angles, trajectories, air currents and, presumably, the emotional temperament of the average pea. Some competitors even employ laser sights. This means there are now human beings walking among us who have attached precision optical technology to a device designed for firing dried vegetables. It is difficult not to admire such commitment. Then there are the elite competitors. These sporting virtuosos place all five peas into their mouths simultaneously and, through a feat of tongue control that surely deserves wider recognition, fire them in rapid succession. The effect is rather like watching a small, highly specialised vegetable machine gun. I confess that as a cat I am particularly impressed by this. Most humans struggle to open a packet of treats without supervision. The next World Pea Shooting Championships take place on 11th July. Naturally, I shall be monitoring developments closely from London, while conducting extensive research into the quality of tuna sandwiches. It is, after all, important that someone maintains professional standards. Larry the Cat CNN Sports Reporter, Downing Street Correspondent, and Occasional Guardian of National Morale #cats #cat #pets #animals #larrythecat #larry