In Pictures: Barbie bog snorkels and flaming vikings – the quirkiness of 2023
PA Reporters
·3-min read
From booting a “bottle” in the land’s oldest sport to bog snorkelling while dressed as Barbie – complete with box – and from swimming in mud dressed as the titular character from Where’s Wally? to setting fire to a viking boat for a flaming good Norse festival, it is safe to say 2023 has not just been a year of Rwanda rows and cost-of-living fears.
Whitby in Yorkshire hosted the Krampus Run, which celebrates the creepy Alpine creature said to scare naughty children, while women took part in the Lerwick squads at the Up Helly Aa fire festival in Shetland for the first time.
Two Leicestershire villages competed in the Hallaton Bottle Kick contest, thought to be Britain’s longest-running sporting event, while in Scotland, St Andrews University students kept it clean for the traditional Raisin Monday foam fight.
Here are some of the quirkiest and most upbeat scenes from up and down the UK in 2023, captured through the lenses of PA news agency photographers.
COMMENT: For his ‘one last push’ of the election campaign, the prime minister made an excruciating TV sofa appearance alongside Britain’s most-tattooed mum – but that wasn’t even the worst of it, says Ryan Coogan. Then, he was asked to name his favourite meal…
British politics has hardly covered itself in glory in recent years. After the shame of the Corbyn years was punctured by the glorious Tory victory of 2019, we were subjected to a veritable gallery of disgrace: soaring immigration, Covid authoritarianism, Partygate, the Truss-Kwarteng interregnum, Gaza fanaticism. But the true nadir was the election of George Galloway in Rochdale.
Britain's 'most tattoed mum' made an appearance on This Morning in nothing but a white bikini to show off all of her tattoos, but fans all say 'it's her choice'
"We are all left utterly bereft and heartbroken. We are grateful for the outpouring of grief, love and support we have received from his innumerable friends"
A shocking animal protest displaying a 'dead dog being roasted on a stick has left Henley Royal Regatta attendees 'stunned'. The daring stunt, which revealed a lurcher dog 'being cooked' under a banner that read 'The Great Dog Roast', occurred at the Henley Royal Regatta at Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, yesterday (3 July). The prestigious rowing event, attended by celebrities and royalty alike, attracted crowds of 300,000 spectators - and many were left 'horrified' to see the unusual delicacy: a dog roast. The stunt, in which a silicone model of a dog was used, was organised by the UK’s leading vegan campaigning charity, Viva! in a bid to 'challenge the perception that it’s socially acceptable to eat some animals but not others'. Viva!’s founder & director, Juliet Gellatley, said: “This Viva! stunt pushed boundaries and had the desired effect of shocking thousands of people into facing the reality that eating pigs, cows and other animals isn’t so different to eating dogs.
Former British tennis number one Tim Henman was left bemused after being pulled over by the police on his way home from the Wimbledon championships on Wednesday
Half an hour before England’s European Championship begins, the DJ at Trabrennbahn Gelsenkirchen gets serious. There is space for 40,000 fans at this racecourse-turned-fanzone but punishing rain and an exodus to the stadium has thinned the crowd. Perhaps 2,000 remain and the site now resembles Glastonbury on the Sunday of a wet year.