One of the wackiest competitions in the world, the World Gravy Wrestling Championship drew in quite a crowd this year, at the Rose n’ Bowl pub, in Stacksteads, Britain.

Over 1,000 people gathered at the famous Lancashire venue, to watch 24 competitors get down and dirty in a pool of gravy. All the contestants had to do to defeat their opponents was get most of the applause, after the 2 minute-long wrestling match. To do this, they wore funny costumes and tried to impress the audience by performing special moves.

Over 2,000 liters of past-its-before-date gravy was supplied for the 2010 World Gravy Wrestling Championship, all of it made following a special local recipe. Hopefully wrestlers didn’t swallow too much of it…

The World Gravy Wrestling Championship is a fun event that aims to raise money for charity, despite the competitive streak of most competitors. This year’s winners were Elliot Rooke, who was dressed as a bunny, and Elisa Samson, who wrestled as Little Bo Peep, in the ladies’ contest.

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That’s right fans of the Dark Knight, your favorite superhero is finally settling down with the love of his life, none other than Wonder Woman. Surrounded by their superhero friends, the lovely couple said “I do” in front of Joker, who played master of ceremonies.

46-year-old Neil Vaughan, and 40-year-old Sharon are not the most traditional people in England, so they decided to get married as their favorite superheroes, and asked their attending friends to follow their example. Neil wanted to be Batman ever since he was a child, and his wife said she always dreamed of being Wonder Woman. They spent under 300 pounds on costumes, to finally fulfill their dreams.

Robin, Batman’s faithful sidekick, was his best man on the big day, while the adorable Powerpuff Girls were bridesmaids. The cast of superheroes at this incredible wedding included The Hulk, Spiderman, Superman, Ironman, Captain America, Wolverine and many others.

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Perhaps a bit to eerie and strange for the average fellow, Seiko Kato‘s Victorian dolls are just what the doctor ordered for a bizarre-lover like me.

Seiko Kato, from Brighton, England, is an artist and illustrator who finds inspiration in old Victorian medical books, Victorian books and encyclopedias, and Victorian paraphernalia. At fist glance, her dolls look like the kind you’d expect to find in your grandmother’s room, but a closer look reveals some rather bizarre augmentations. Seiko Kato adds various steampunk elements to give her creations a unique look.

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Definitely not my dream car, the Smart is a useful vehicle that will get you from point A to point B, with decent fuel consumption and no worries about finding a parking space. But other than this, the Smart isn’t the most impressive car on the market. But with a little imagination and a lot of work, even the Smart can become a unique neck-twister. Here are six examples:

Smart tank

Now this is one Smart I’d love to take for a ride! A tank is probably the last thing anyone would think about when looking at a Smart, but it’s surprising how well those tracks fit on the little bug. Unfortunately not much is known about this unique tuning masterpiece, other than it belongs to someone in Germany.

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Home to the largest secondhand bookstore in the world, Hay-on-Wye is more than just a little town on the border between England and Wales, it’s book heaven on Earth.

The history of Hay-on-Wye as the “town of books” began on Fools’ Day of 1977, when during a bold publicity stunt, bibliophile Richard Booth announced the independence of Hay-on-Wye as a kingdom of books, with him as the monarch. Ambassadors were sent to the International Court of Justice, in Hague, and a rowing gunboat started patrolling on the river Wye. Since then, he managed to establish a healthy tourism industry based on books, and thousands of visitors come to Hay-on-Wye every year, to look for whatever books they need.

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Just because he wasn’t able to travel to South Africa, and support his national team, on the scene, doesn’t mean football fan Mark Thompson can’t experience the vibe of a crowded stadium, right in he comfort of his own living room.

45-year-old Mark Thompson, and his 55-year-old wife Kate decided to pick a theme for this year’s Football World Cup, and after doing some online research, they decided the stadium would do just fine. They covered the side walls of their living room with England emblem wallpaper, designed a six yard line and penalty spot, on their green carpet, and set up a giant poster of the World Cup stadium, complete with drawn supporters.

The English couple were planning to redecorate anyway, and thought this was the perfect way to celebrate the greatest event in football, before giving their house a whole new look. Now they’re ready to invite friends to watch Engalnd’s football games, on a “real” stadium, with a theme for every match. When they played the US, Karen served burgers, with Algeria she will cook curries, and against Slovenia they’ll have goulash.

A big fan of Manchester United, Mark says he’s taken out all the furniture and replaced it with some garden chairs, during the World Cup. Although his wife, Karen, would like things to get back to normal once the football tournament is over, Mark confesses he’d like to keep his makeshift stadium for a lot longer.

via Daily Mail and Oldham Evening Chronicle

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46-year old Vipula Athukorale spends tens of hours creating some of the most intricate food-art masterpieces in the world.

Mr. Athukorale has worked, as a chef, in high ranking restaurants in Grece, Cyprus, Bahrain, Iraq and England, creating amazing works of edible art, out of butter. Actually, he uses pastry margarine, but “margarine sculptures” doesn’t roll as smoothly off the tongue. This fancy chef won two gold medals and a silver one, at the international Salon Culinaire Awards, in London, last week , for his detailed Rolls Royce, and scenes from Pinocchio and Pied Piper stories.

According to the artist, the Rolls Royce took around 90 hours to complete, and features detailed interior and underside. In order to get everything right, Vipula Athukorale doesn’t even breathe, when sculpting margarine. To keep his hands from shaking, he leans in toward the artwork, takes a deep breath, does some sculpting, then leans back and breathes out. He also washes his hands in ice-cold water, to prevent his hot fingers from damaging the artwork.

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A 200-year old willow processing company has recently targeted the coffin business, and apparently had great success.

P H Coate & Son’s English Willow Coffins, from Somerset, England,  has started offering dead people an alternative to traditional wooden coffins. Some individuals are just bored by the same old wooden coffins, as if they died and have been buried in them too many times. Anyway, John Parfitt and company say willow is the more popular pick these days, because of it alluring aesthetics (cough!) and environmental reasons.

Willow coffins are hand-crafted by skilled willow basket masters (that explains why they look more like coffin-shaped baskets), using a traditional method, and clients have a selection to pick from. Environmentalist are going to go mad for these babies, but what about those artistic wooden coffins from Ghana, what happens to them?

Photos by Matt Cardy/Getty Images Europe via Zimbio

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Everybody loves a good food fight. But there’s no food fight like a pie fight.

251 children gathered at the Kidz Stuff Festival, in Horsham, southern England, to stage the biggest custard pie fight ever. The event took place on May 31 2009 with the clear goal of setting a new record for the largest custard pie fight. The current record stands at 120, but it will surely fall once the Guinness Book of Records finishes its verification.

Photos by Xinhua/Reuters

via Xinhuanet.com

Everybody knows the popular animation movie Shrek has a large fan-base, but some of those fans go as far as to get married dressed as their favorite characters.

British nurse Christine England and her fiance Keith got married last month, wearing the costumes of Fiona and Shrek. They spent over three hours putting on the costumes and green make-up, but it was worth it, since it was a wedding neither of them will forget.

Christine tried to get her 18 years old son to dress-up like Donkey, but “he wasn’t having any of it”. The 100 guests attending the wedding were also dressed in funky, fairytale costumes.

via Daily Mail

A few months ago I wrote a post about the world’s tallest tower near Legoland Windsor, in England, but now it is forced to hand over the title to the new LEGO Tower in Vienna.

Built by hundreds of children near Vienna‘s city-hall, the new world’s tallest LEGO tower ended up being 29,48 meters tall, beating the previous tower of “only” 29,03 meters. The LEGO tower in Vienna was built using a crane and several support wires that secured it against strong winds. After the record was certified by an official judge from The Guinness Book of Records, the LEGO Tower was dismantled.

The Tower of Vienna was created to celebrate the festival “100 Years of Friends of Children“.

Photo Credits

 Uri Geller, one of the world’s most famous spoon-benders, also created one of the most unusual cars you’ve ever seen. Covered with over 5,000bent pieces of silverware, Geller’s Spoon Cadillac is a tribute to his extraordinary talent. 1000 spoons and forks were donated by children from Israel, India, Great Britain and others are collection items, touched or used by famous personalities.

If he were to drive his Spoon Cadillac, instead of keeping it on display at the Beaulieu National Museum, in England, Uri Geller would have some serious trouble getting it washed and waxed. Some of the pieces on this custom-built 1974 Cadillac were bent by Uri Geller himself, using his incredible brain-power, while the others were bent artificially by him and his friend Avi Pines, a famous Israeli sculptor.

Travelodge Hotel just opened in London, England and although it might not look like anything special, it’s much different than ordinary hotels for the simple reason that it’s made out of containers. That’s right, those large metal boxes container-ships carry around. This is a first for Europe, but in China container-hotels are common, especially in Shanghai.

Travelodge has 120 rooms, but you can relax, they look nothing like the inside of a container. They are ecquiped with all the facilities you can find in any normal hotel room and if the hotel is able dismantled, the containers can be use for shiping. This is what experts call an ecological building

Diggerland is an unusual fun-park where children and adults alike can experience life on a construction site.

I can’t say I’ve ever been a big fan of construction machinery but if you or your kids love it head on to one of the four Diggerland parks in England and enjoy a full day as a construction worker. You’ll get the chance to drive trucks, mini diggers and giant diggers under the strict supervision of trained professionals, take pictures and get a good meal at the Dig inn.

I’m sure some kids might love this stuff but me, well I’ve never dreamed of a career in constructions so I guess I won’t be visiting Diggerland anytime soon. For more details on the unusual Diggerland theme-park head over to their official site.

The world’s first sand-hotel is open for business on Weymouth beach, Dorset, in England. The 1000 tone-of-sand structure was built in a week by a team of 4 sand-sculptors and is only expected to last until it rains…which, as you probably know, happens quite often in Britain.

The sand-hotel was commissioned by a local travel website that, upon doing some research, found out that 57% of English tourists prefer foreign beach-destinations instead of national ones. So this is like a statement that signifies the rebirth of British tourism. The sand hotel has no roof, so you have a clear view of the star-filled night sky, no toilets and is not recommended for those that hate getting sand between their toes. For an offbeat experience like spending a night at the wonderful sand-hotel, you only have to pay $21, more than a fair price, in my opinion.

And if this doesn’t appeal to you, maybe you’d like to try the ice-hotel? But you’ll have till winter for that one.

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