Sunday, 9 March, 2003, 10:29 GMT

Predictable Pancake Pandemonium

On Shrove Tuesday, of all the random days to pick, inhabitants of the small town of Market Pickton attempted to break the World Record for ‘most pancakes tossed in 24 hours’.

Organiser Clare Timkins took time out from the competition to speak to Passenger: “We were all really excited,” she said, excitedly, “It’s taken ages to work out the logistics of this thing and even longer to find a volunteer to do all the washing up afterwards!”

The competition was due to start at 9am, on the village green and within easy distance of the Hiker & Vultures Inn so as to allow participants to relax and get drunk after, during and indeed before the competition. Around a thousand people had turned up to participate - over twice the population of the town.

Passenger spoke to Tossing Expert Dr Francis Bargle about the attempt, having a good laugh about his job description on the way. “I think it’s a very original idea, doing it on Shrove Tuesday and all,” he said, brandishing his 33rd Pancake-day thesis on the physics of Pancakodynamics (it’s good to see physicists still have an imagination), “And I wish them all the best. But if it’s windy, I’d be worried that the third differential of dv by dt of the pancakes’ vorticity will be compromised, resulting in a Hell of a lot more work for the poor volunteer to wash up!”

We asked Bargle how his team, entitled ‘The Association for the Popularisation of Science by Appealing and Originally-Timed Public Interest Experimentation and Catchy Society Names’ (TAPSAOTPIECS, which he assures us is not a spinal condition), would continue after this ground-breaking work on pancakes. “Well, we have a few projects lined up,” he said, “Our most original are ideas about statistical analysis of trick-or-treat economics, which we plan to publish on November 1st.”

Meanwhile, back in Market Pickton, the record attempt tragically ground to a halt when an attempt on ‘the World’s largest pancake’ from another nearby town drifted on the wind and settled, like a giant marquee, over all the competitors. It took ten fire crews three hours to eat their way through the pancakey goodness and rescue competitors.