2011 Edinburgh Fringe

More details

The Edinburgh Fringe this August will host The Malcolm Hardee Spaghetti-Juggling Contest - Year One but Guinness World Records has cruelly dealt a bitter blow to spaghetti-juggling enthusiasts worldwide when they shockingly refused to recognise spaghetti-juggling as a legitimate event.

"While we certainly do not underestimate your proposal," Guinness World Records write, "we do however think that this item is a little too specialised for a body of reference as general as ours. We receive many thousands of record claims every year and we think you will appreciate that we are bound to favour those which reflect the greatest interest."

How can people not be fascinated or, indeed, be obsessed by spaghetti-juggling?

Nero is said to have juggled spaghetti while Rome burned. He later successfully spin-doctored the rumour he was playing the violin because he wanted to seem more cultured.

Spaghetti-juggling organiser John Fleming (a former researcher on cult kids' TV show Tiswas) says: "My lifelong hopes and dreams of spaghetti-juggling becoming a recognised, legitimate - perhaps even Olympic - sport may have been dented today, but they will not be so easily crushed. Spaghetti-juggling may not be in the Olympics next year nor in 2016, but the stupidity and pointlessness of an idea should be no barrier to its acceptance as an event. This is Britain, where stupidity and pointlessness have been widely cherished for centuries. And still are. Clay pigeon shooting. Marmite. I rest my case."

"Spaghetti-juggling is an event at which Britain could excel and in which Britain could take a decisive lead this August. Throwing a javelin is a remarkably pointless thing to do in the 21st century, except possibly at Celtic v Rangers football matches. But people still get gold medals for it. Or arrested. Spaghetti-juggling has the potential to rival javelin-throwing and curling - an Olympic sport which is basically just polishing ice as quickly as you can."

"Spaghetti-juggling is the future for pointless sports. It has its days of glory ahead of it, starting this year at the Edinburgh Fringe Outside The Beehive Inn on 24th and 25th August. Be there or risk missing the start of a cultural phenomenon."