Weasel Appreciation Day

It all began on the morning before Weasel Appreciation Day. There we were, the whole team - including our Goal Inquisitor, Stan Toastbutterer - were cleaning the studs on our Weasel Appreciation boots, ready for the big day, when suddenly Stan Toastbutterer said, "It looks like rain."

Oh, how we laughed as we traditionally beat him about the traditional head, face and neck with our traditional badger racquets and weasel cues. Of course, as everyone knows, Weasel Appreciation Day would have to be called off if there was even the merest hint of rain in the air.

The traditional Weasel Appreciation Day costumes simply cannot stand up to the slightest bit of drizzle, and some of the rituals, despite the use of studded boots, can be very tricky to perform on a muddy pitch. Everyone remembers what happened when the traditional ceremonial penalty shoot-out between the Apostates and the Heretics took place in 1963, despite a rainstorm earlier that day, when several penalties went wide or over the bar before last orders had been called, and the Apostates Centre-Choirboy, Skidmark Acidbreath, severely twisted his surplice, putting him out of Evensong for the rest of the season. Less well-know is the sudden downpour that happened in 1983 when the Lord High Sausage Taster was accidentally basted in his own ritual gravy due to the volume of the rainfall making the diving board very slippy indeed.

Many people have remarked on the fact that a country chiefly famous for its drizzle does seem to have an inordinate fondness for outdoor pursuits that have to stop because of the rain, such as cricket, tennis, picnics, dogging and - of course - Weasel Appreciation Day itself. Others, however, myself included, put this down to the traditional sheer bloody-mindedness that has made the Briton traditionally such a pain in the arse to everyone else, both throughout history and throughout the world.