We watched the annual Wok World Championships on Pro7 what is now last night. It’s now one of those annual events in the house and here’s a bit of the history of it.

It started about 6 years ago, sadly I missed the first few championships but it comes from a bet made by a German TV presenter called Stefan Raab. No one will probably have heard of him on these shores but if you think combine Parkinson with Ant & Dec that’s a good approximation. He’s massive in terms of German TV with a mix of comedy, light interviewing, heavier interviewing and some completely madcap stuff at times.

Anyway, story goes he made a bet with another presenter and if he lost he agreed to go down one of those bobsleigh runs in a wok. He lost and had to do it. Then came the idea that it should be turned into a championship and every year since he’s organised a World Championship event.

However, almost always the teams/individuals are from Germany so I was thinking what it really needs is a Team GB to enter. I’m completely up for it if anyones interested in getting together to check how we might take part. There’s the individual event and the 4 man bob event which I think we’d fare better at. So there you go, if there’s three others out there with enough bottle to throw themselves down a bobsleigh run in a wok then I’m up for it. Those carrying a few extra pounds would be especially welcome as the more weight equals more speed.

I’ve decided to set up a new category for daft ideas. These are the things that we all have from time to time but who knows? There might just be something that comes out that is useful. Mrs Penguin can testify that I am very good at coming up with daft ideas for which I’m sure sometimes she thinks I’m mad but one day they might change the world.
So to start things off, here’s my first daft idea. Up and down the country there are millions of Britons who spend their time in gyms working off excess consumed energy on various devices.
Now most of these exercise devices aren’t going to be applicable but for those that produce rotary motion (I’m thinking exercise bikes here). Why not hook them up to a dynamo and plug them into the grid?
I know the science, the amounts of energy produced aren’t much, but why waste the energy for what amounts to twenty quids worth of equipment added to the average bike. Who knows, some of the gyms might end up making a little bit of extra money back.