Harry's Bar

This weekend I have mostly been eating pies.

Well, that's not strictly true, but I did share a pie from the chip shop last night, and I made fish pie today. Which is a different sort of pie really. Nonetheless, it made me remember the poem I started last year, so I've been trying to work that through a bit.

It's about a fella called Neil Collier, in the middle of that lovely picture, who recently became the World Pie Eating Champion.  As carefully regulated as an Olympic sport, the annual contest takes place in Lancashire. Neil ate his pie in under 24 seconds, halving last year's winning attempt of 47 seconds.  It is held in a joint called Harry's Bar, although no mention is made of Bellinis (it being Wigan, after all).

Last time I went to Wigan (which was some time ago, admittedly), I was waiting for a taxi and overhead two men talking about their weight-lifting competition and the diets they were following. One of them swore by high-protein, steaks and such. The other was favouring oily fish. He mentioned tuna, mackerel, pilchards.

"Are pilchards fooking fish?" asked Meathead, in amazement.

I decided to find out more about the background to the pie-eating contest. It has an interesting 20 year history with a number of scandals and upsets along the way.  It is the responsibility of the previous year's reigning champion to look after the pies overnight before the competition, and last year it nearly had to be called off at the last minute. Most of the correctly-prepared pies (with the regulation gravy, properly-diced meat cubes etc) were stolen from the fridge and eaten by the champion's dog, who got into the fridge when it was left open as the champ rushed away to rescue a racing pigeon which had become trapped in his chimney.

Talk about comedy Northern cliches - you couldn't make it up, could you? There's got to be a performance poem in that, just got to be.