All work and no play makes the boys and girls at Frank & Faith extremely dull indeed, so off we went on a works jolly last Saturday to cheer on the reigning  ‘World Stinging Nettle Eating Champion’ Mike Hobbs who was crowned ‘King Of The Stingers’ last year.

Mike is our local landscape gardener and lives in the next village along from Frank & Faith’s head quarters, so we went down en mass to the sleepy village of Marshwood in deepest Dorset to cheer him on. It’s probably one of Dorset’s most unusual events, but competitors come from all over the world and this year there were over 65 people entered into the event. All geared up to munch their way through as many stinging nettles as they can in an hour. Faces rigid with pain and disgust as they hunkered down to consume yards of nettles in an attempt to break Mike’s winning score of 48 yards.

There is no easy way to winning the World Stinging Nettle Eating Championship but Mike reckons knocking back 3 pints of cider before hand helps a great deal. Another top tip from Mike is to squash the leaves into tight little balls which he then tries to throw straight to the back molars.

Then you try to munch them up and swallow with as little contact as possible. The problems begin when the nettles start to back up in the mouth and throat. I’ll let you imagine the rest but just remember there are only 2 rules, you swallow back what you bring up (hopefully caught in a pint pot and not all over the table) and if you leave the table to ‘powder you nose’ you are out… arrrrrgh!

Competitors are served two-foot-long stalks of nettles from which they must pluck and devour the leaves. The bare stalks are then measured and the winner, after an hour of combat, is the one with the greatest accumulated length!

Unfortunaly this year Mike was toppled from his throne by a 19 year whipper snapper who consumed an amazing 74 yards which was only 2 yards short of the all time world record! Never mind better luck next year Mike and let us all know when everything stops coming out bright green at the other end, another charming side effect, hilarious!!!

By Anya Pearson

For more info go to The Bottle Inns website