Now There's A Strange Hobby

There are people in the world who think I am weird; they are easy to spot – they are breathing.

Perhaps their perception of me is a little unfair. I may be weird but there are far stranger people than me roaming the Earth.

How do I know?

I was watching QI on Friday and was introduced to the concept of  worm charming, a hobby that I can only describe as very peculiar (and I am being very kind when I write this). One of the contestants had a look on his face that said it all:

“You sad, sad people – for God’s sake GET A LIFE!”

It got me thinking – what other bizarre hobbies are out there?

I will confess to a couple of strange pastimes I have embraced in my life – but not now. First, I want you to read about some odd leisure activities that Mr Google told me about.

Let’s start with the one I encountered on QI:

Worm Charming

I don’t like worms. I’ve never liked them. I never will. Yet there are people out there who spend their free time trying to entice them out of the ground. I can understand somebody doing this if he is fishing and has run out of bait but doing it for fun? That is ridiculous. Mind you, I think fishing is another ridiculous hobby – but that’s another story.

Nevertheless, I share a country where armies of people do this for fun. People gather in fields, armed with various implements which they use to hit the ground (apparently to simulate rain) in an attempt to tempt the worms to surface.

And then they count them. And the people who have collected the most worms are the winners. I've heard about competition but that is ridiculous.

Ferret Racing

Another creature I am not keen on is the ferret. I have known people who look and act like ferrets (one in particular whom we nicknamed “The Ferret” – how original were we?). Ferrets are vicious little brutes with sharp teeth that should be left out there in the wild and not domesticated.

There are a group of people who keep them as pets and a subgroup who like to wander over to fields filled with plastic pipes and race their pets against each other. I can’t think of anything more tedious myself. I would prefer to starve a ferret for a couple of days and then stick it down the trousers of those who race them; Sadly, there are people who do that already. Apparently the record is over five hours. Words fail me.

Looking for Mythical Creatures

Some people are not content with unusual hobbies with odd creatures. There are a number of people worldwide who simply are not satisfied with something as mundane as luring a worm out of its nice cosy little home of soil. These people think big and think outside the box. Why be content with a ferret when you can have the Loch Ness Monster? Yes, there are people in the world whose hobby is to sit patiently on the shores of a Scottish Loch waiting for a monster; or tramping through the forests of America searching for Big Foot; or risking life and limb in the Himalayas in search of a Yeti. I wouldn’t mind, but the photos I’ve seen of dear old Nessie are totally unconvincing. I could draw a more convincing picture myself. Here’s a message from me to people who believe that the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot and the Yeti exist:

They DO NOT exist. If they did then we would have found them by now. Find another hobby.

UFO Spotting

There are people who are worse than Nessie hunters; people who aren’t satisfied with searching for mythical creatures on planet Earth; people who take blue sky thinking to the extreme. UFO spotters are utterly convinced that we are being scrutinised, kidnapped and experimented on by aliens from another world. Utter poppycock. I love science fiction but it is incredible to me that aliens are zooming around our skies looking for rednecks to experiment on.

I knew a UFO spotter at university and he was so confident that aliens were roaming the heavens waiting for the right moment to come down and conquer us all, that he spent time at night with telescopes and binoculars hunting them in the skies. I told him that life was not like Star Trek. Talking of which …

Extreme Trekkers

I have to confess that I am a Star Trek fan. However, I have drawn a line. I watch it on TV and that’s the end of it. To some people it is a religion; some people think it is REAL. One guy I used to work with turned up to work with a manual for the Starship Enterprise, describing in detail how the various of the components of a fictional space craft work. I can’t believe he bought it. I can’t believe anybody actually went to the trouble to WRITE it. At least he drew the line at walking around dressed as a Klingon, speaking Klingon and calling himself Thwaktok.

Extreme Ironing

I hate ironing. It is one of the most tedious chores that I have to do. I have tried to bribe Mrs PM to do my ironing but she hates it even more than I do. Some people love it. Some people love it so much that they want to do it in weird places under extreme conditions. In my mind, extreme ironing involves brain surgery – i.e. remove the “common sense” nodule of the brain alongside the “recognising boredom” lobe. Extreme ironing enthusiasts are missing something. Why iron on the top of a mountain, at the bottom of a lake or while hang gliding? If you don’t believe me, here is proof.

Eddie Stobart Lorry Spotters

I was horrified to discover that there actually is a hobby that is sadder than trainspotting. I’ve always questioned why people stand on railway platforms in the middle of winter recording serial numbers of locomotives. These days, the politically correct term for these sad people is “railway enthusiast”. They will always be trainspotters to me. Nevertheless, even lower down the scale than these dreary people are those who drive up and down the motorways of England looking for Eddie Stobart lorries. Eddie Stobart has a fleet of lorries each of which has a name like “Abbey Louise” and “Pamela Jane” and the idea is that you stand by the motorway or drive up and down the length of country recording them as you see them. How sad is that? Eddie Stobart is based in Carlisle – this is one reason I never want to go there.

Vomit Photography

Personally, I consider around 90% of what passes as “modern art” to be pictures of vomit hanging on our walls under the pretence of being some moving philosophical masterpiece that makes pseudo-intellectuals orgasmic with delight. There are weird people out there whose mission it is to walk around with a camera, taking photographs of people vomiting or the after effects of having vomited. I worry about the world sometimes.

Treating Monkeys As Babies

I watched a programme on TV some time ago about people in America who own monkeys and treat them just like babies. It was one of those televisual events where I wanted to switch off the TV but was engulfed in a shroud of disbelief and morbid fascination. I was actually too shocked to rant and too stunned to pick up the remote control. One woman not only dressed her monkey up in a pram, she also put lipstick on the ugly little beast and cuddled it like a child. I sat there for an hour with my mouth open in utter astonishment.

What about me?

I have a couple of hobbies at the moment; blogging, photography and learning Spanish, as well as other interests such as rock music, rock gigs and reading.

I have to confess that I have had a couple of hobbies that may be regarded as quite sad:

(1) Collecting Football Programmes – I have approximately 500 football programmes from games involving Walsall FC between 1973 and 1985. I still have them up in the loft but I no longer actively collect them. Mrs PM wants me to recycle them all but I reckon they might actually be worth something in years to come (well that’s my excuse anyway).

(2) Collecting beer mats – A couple of mates and I challenged each other at university to see who could collect the most beer mat. I went through approximately three tons of Blu Tack pinning them to the walls and ceiling of my room in the halls of residence before thinking – “Hang on! What in the name of all that is insane am I doing?” I recycled them. One friend took it to extreme though and when we were in France together he marched up to a waiter in Paris and said “Moi! J’aime les beer mats.” The waiter gave him a look that I will treasure for the rest of my life – if only I had had a camera with me.

(3) Playing the Air Guitar – I have to confess that in the past when alone in the house I have been known to close the blinds, put on some heavy metal, crank up the volume and become Joe Satriani, Kirk Hammett, John Petrucci, Alex Lifeson or Ritchie Blackmore – or an amalgamation of all of them and more. Thankfully I haven’t done this for years – apart from a stint on Guitar Hero (with a small plastic guitar).

I’ve bared my soul to you again, dear reader, in that last section.

Now over to you – do you have a weird or wonderful hobby?

Let me know – I won’t laugh – after all I’ve just confessed to shredding a non-existent guitar.

How sad is that?

New Year, New Hobby? I Need Help

People have called me a weirdo on many occasions (and these are friends). I admit that I can be strange if I want to be (you may have worked this out yourselves from some of my earlier posts). However, I can tell you that there are some truly bizarre folks out there on Planet Earth. How do I know? Allow me to enlighten you.

At this time of the year, as the excesses of Christmas fade and the compulsory New Year party approaches, I usually take the time to examine my life and plan improvements for the coming year. I’ve had varying degrees of success in the past. For example, this time last year I promised myself that I would make an effort to embrace my love of creative writing. In the past I had merely dabbled and written the odd short story or rant. In 2008 I decided to start a blog to publish my thoughts to the world and receive some feedback. I thought to myself, why should I suffer the crazy and bizarre thought processes in my head alone? The whole world is mad and my thoughts are there to be shared. It took me three months to pluck up the courage and this blog is the result. And I am happy with it. However, I also promised myself that I would try to teach myself how to play the guitar. That lasted three months. I was bloody useless. In 2009, I will continue to post on this blog (sorry folks) and develop my love of writing.

Nevertheless, I have decided that I need something else, a new hobby of sorts. And it is while researching hobbies that I have discovered the eccentricities of people out there in the wonderful world we live in, people that make me look normal. These people have the most incredible hobbies you can imagine. And I’ve only scratched the surface. I am standing at the zenith of a colossal iceberg of weirdness – and it scares me.

Allow me to start with people who collect things. As a child I was fanatical about Walsall FC and used to go to every home game and as many away games as my dad would take me to. During those years I collected the football programmes from every single game I attended. I still have that collection today. As strange as that may sound, it is positively normal compared to some of the stuff amassed by people out there. For example: airline sickness bags. There are people who actually keep the barf bags that are meant for puking in should an aircraft encounter violent turbulence. Thankfully I haven’t discovered anybody who looks for used ones (yet!).

Other odd items that people collect include:

Garden gnomes whose heads are impaled with spikes and axes: This is a cause of major concern to me. I can vaguely understand folks filling their gardens with gnomes but the thought of buying a gnome and then gluing an axe to its head and painting blood on its face strikes me as perturbing. Am I alone?

Soil samples from abroad: One man I discovered travels the world and whenever he sets foot in a new place, he will scoop up some dirt, store it in a jar, label the jar and then take it back home with him to store in a shed or some other dark and lonely place.

Soil samples from famous graves: One man seeks out the graves of famous dead people, travels there and scoops up soil from the grave itself. How macabre.

Others collect a wide range of strange stuff like: thimbles, handcuffs, fish posters, sugar packets, toothpaste, saw blades, toilet paper, chocolate wrappers and medical antiques.

And I thought stamp collectors were weird.

Moving on, another hobby that people pursue is spotting. I find bird spotting a little strange but I can understand nature lovers enjoying seeing a rare bird. Others, however, are just weird:

Train spotting: I know a couple of train spotters (or “railway enthusiasts” as they like to call themselves) and I just cannot see the fascination of standing on a lonely platform with a book writing down serial numbers of locomotives. To me it is one of the saddest pastimes imaginable. But there is something worse ...

Plane spotting: A few years ago I took my two sons to the observation area at Manchester Airport as they had never seen an aircraft in its full glory. Sadly, we encountered an army of “plane enthusiasts” who had camped out there for hours armed with their radios and notebooks. A Pakistan International Airlines 747 approached while we were there. How did we know? One of the “enthusiasts” listening in on the radio screamed “it’s the PIA jumbo”. It was like a goal scored at a cup final. All of the plane spotters leapt up as one, pulled out their notebooks and binoculars and whooped as the aircraft approached. My boys were keen because they had never seen one but these guys were almost in total ecstasy. They cheered as the metal monster roared past and almost passed out in delirium as the tires hit the tarmac of the runway. I thought these people were the saddest people I had ever encountered until I discovered …

Bus spotting: I live in Manchester, a city that relies on buses as a major form of public transport. Why on earth would anybody want to stand at a bus stop and write down model numbers of each double decker that roared past? I have never seen one of these geeky nerds but I would love to, just so that I can persuade them to acquire some kind of life. However, they do have a life compared to those who are …

Eddie Stobart spotters: Eddie Stobart is the name of a haulage company with a fleet of distinctive lorries that travel the length and breadth of the United Kingdom and beyond. The lorries are distinctive and each one has a unique female name. An Eddie Stobart spotter is a person who sits on the side of the motorway basically spotting these lorries as they go about their daily duties. They even have a website called “Club Stobart” where like minded people can talk to each other. I had a quick peep to get an insight into their psyche but left when I discovered that I had to pay £15 for the privilege. Is that sad or what? Yes it is but even sadder is …

Trolley spotting: I discovered a woman who travels around searching for abandoned shopping trolleys. She takes a photo of them, marks their exact location and then returns home and records them on a map.

Container ship spotting: I’ve asked myself - do I want to travel all the way to Norfolk, stand on a cold, desolate, isolated beach with a pair of binoculars and a notepad and wait for a container ship to drift past? It took me a nanosecond to answer; NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Enough spotting! How about being a fanatic? Recently, Barry Manilow played a concert in Manchester and Mrs PM’s dad was dragged there by his wife, forking out £240 for two tickets. He told me that he was sitting next to five women who were “Fanilows”. These are fanatics of the man who travel everywhere to see their hero. And boy do they travel. One woman said that she has been to Las Vegas to see Barry more times than she can recall and has paid thousands and thousands of pounds to do so. She was in Manchester but she had travelled all the way from Peterborough to see him, having been to London to see him on his previous date. Now that IS dedication. I’m still smarting over paying £45 to see AC/DC in April next year.

If music isn’t your bag then you could become a science fiction fanatic. And there are plenty of science fiction programmes to get excited about. I have to confess that I do love a bit of sci-fi and I love Star Trek, Star Wars, Babylon 5 and Dr Who. However, my love of the show stops at simply watching them on TV. I do not, for example, watch endless repeats. And I certainly do not dress up as a Starfleet Officer, give myself a Starfleet command title, learn Klingon, turn my dentists surgery into the Enterprise sick bay or go to a convention. I have one thing to say to those that do – IT’S JUST A TV PROGRAMME!!!!!

Fanaticism is out then. At this point I was struggling but did discover a couple of miscellaneous hobbies that made me laugh:

Duct tape artist – a woman who uses duct tape to construct works of art. However, she doesn’t limit herself to mere sculptures; she makes jewellery, shoes and even clothes. I would love to go to her fashion show. Maybe I could buy Mrs PM a duct tape dress for New Years Eve.

Space hijackers – These are a bunch of passive anarchists who stage unexpected events. For example, take the Circle Line Party. Meet on an underground station on the Circle Line in London, board the train and sit down with you fellow space hijackers and wait for the train to depart. As soon as the doors close and the train pulls out – HAVE A PARTY complete with drinks, disco lights, dancing, singing, karaoke and whatever. Carry on partying until the train pulls into the next station and then retake your seats in silence. When the train moves off again, HAVE ANOTHER PARTY! Carry on ad nauseam!

Guerilla gardening – Visit your local garden centre and buy lots of plants, bulbs and seeds. Wait until it is dark and then break into your neighbours’ gardens and plant the things you have purchased randomly. I presume that you may have to wait a month or so for the fruits of your labour but the pleasure of seeing their faces when they discover a rose bush sprouting up from their lawn.

So I need help. I can’t find anything that I want to do that isn’t sad, mad or outrageous. Any ideas?

Maybe I’ll just brush up on my French or write that elusive novel. If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know – as long as it doesn’t involve being perched on a stool by the motorway looking like a sad goon, or following a decrepit old has-been around the world.

Have a Happy New Year everybody and I hope 2009 is a fabulous year for you.