101 Sports Not to Try

Following on from 101 Places Not To Visit—the tour guide that told you where not to go on vacation—comes a guide on how not to spend your free time. 101 Sports Not To Try is written with exactly the same deadpan wit as its predecessor and details a range of wacky sports from around the world that will have you arrested or in hospital, or both. Covering a huge variety of events and activities from wife-carrying to the luge, it lists the likelihood of death or injury for each sport, the history, cost, rewards and the bizarre clothing you might be obliged to wear. The list combines conventional sports such as lacrosse, cricket and baseball, with local classics, such as the Pamplona bull run, the sack-of-coal race in Skipton or Gloucestershire cheese rolling. You can play elephant polo or camel polo (with a headless goat as a ball), or simply wrestle the camel. You can choose to toss dwarves, cabers or mobile phones; get your head round impossible rules in the Eton Wall Game or Henry VIII’s favourite, real tennis. In Ireland you can try bog snorkelling, in Holland dyke jumping, in Belgium songbird listening, in Canada log-rolling and in Florida crab racing. 101 Sports Not To Try gives you all the reasons you need not to join in.