SHOREKIPA
We heard Robby Naish has been thinking of moving to the UK so he can ride the infamous waves at Shorekipa. Home to the gnarliest shore dump on the south coast at high tide on a force nine gale. It’s Nik Bakers home patch and where he learnt to be one of the world’s best. He even has his own beach hut there and it just goes to show what is possible if you’re a young aspiring sailor with dreams of making it to the top, you can do it and all from the comfort of your local British beach.
TRIVIA AND FUNNY STUFF
And so we finish this tribute to the Best of British with a few fun facts and figures, the sort of borderline intellectual trivia that our country thrives on. We’re all off now for a cup of tea and digestive biscuit before we hit the beach and then some Pie and Chips followed by a game of scrabble down the British Legion afterwards if we’re lucky ! Cheers from all the windsurf crew! Henry and Joyce Blackwell who live in Church Flats Farm in Derbyshire are slightly unlucky. They live at the furthest possible point in the UK from the Sea, around 70 miles!
The strongest wind ever recorded in the UK was 173mph on Cairngorm Summit on 20 March 1986. The phrase ‘rule of thumb’ is derived from an old English law which stated you couldn’t beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb. In 1647 parliament abolished Christmas. No words in the English language rhyme with orange, purple, month or silver. In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes which could be tightened to make the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase; ‘Goodnight, sleep tight!’
In Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person inside the city walls with a bow and arrow after midnight. The military salute comes from Medieval knights raising there visors to see each other. East Peckham in Kent has a unique claim to fame: it’s where the first-ever speeding ticket was issued, in January 1896. Walter Arnold was spotted doing 8mph in a 2mph zone, but was easily apprehended by a policeman riding a bicycle. The last ‘witches’ to be hanged in Britain were three women from Bideford in Devon, in 1682. There was no evidence against them, but other villages accused them of sending the devil to their enemies’ houses, in the form of a magpie and a tabby cat. JC