Leon
06-06-2002, 09:34
TWO people were taken to hospital and 13 more treated by paramedics after injuring themselves at a cheese rolling contest.
Competitors in the ancient event came to grief as they chased an 8lb Double Gloucester down a hill with a daunting one-in-three gradient.
Injuries included gashed heads, severe cuts and bruises, and even fainting fits in the 4,000 crowd.
Among the worst casualties was 27-year-old Craig Brown, who won the annual competition two years ago.
He triumphed again in the first of four men’s races involving 17 hardened cheese-chasers.
But he was left in agony in the next heat, when he tumbled down the steep slope and ended lying in a crumpled heap with a badly cut head and injured neck.
Pub landlord Craig was rushed to hospital from the course at Cooper’s Hill in Brockworth, Gloucs — but was given the allclear following X-rays.
He said afterwards: “It was the worst fall I’ve ever had in my life. It was absolutely horrendous.
“I really didn’t think I would take a fall like that — the race was a lot worse than last time I did it.” Curious spectators from as far afield as Germany, Israel and South Korea gathered to watch the crazy contest.
The bizarre sport goes back centuries and is believed to have originated as a fertility rite.
Despite the injury toll, organiser Richard Jeffries insisted the day had been “a great success”.
He said: “There are always casualties and this is probably the most dangerous thing ordinary members of the public can take part in nowadays.
“But the injuries are not usually that serious and we do warn people what to expect. It’s a great British tradition and we’re determined to keep it alive.”
The women’s race was won by Saskia Thomas, 25 — who works as a barmaid at Craig’s pub, the Plough Inn at Ford, near Stowon-the-Wold, Gloucs.
Other winners were former jockey Simon Fowler, 26, from Cheltenham, and 16-year-old schoolboy Jack Williams from Brockworth.
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Vibrating rubber cellphones could be the next big thing in mobile communications, allowing people to communicate by squishing the phone to transmit vibrations along with their spoken words. According to a research team at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the idea will make phoning more fun.
Many mobile phones can already be made to vibrate instead of ring when you do not want people to know you are getting a call. But these vibrations, caused by a motor spinning an eccentric weight inside the device, are too crude for subtle communication, says Angela Chang of the lab's Tangible Media Group. "They're either on or off," she says.
But when you grip Chang's prototype latex cellphone, your fingers and thumb wrap around five tiny speakers which vibrate against your skin around 250 times per second. Beneath these speakers sit pressure sensors, so you can transmit vibration as well as receiving it.
When you squeeze with a finger, a vibration signal is transmitted to your caller's corresponding finger, its strength dependent on how hard you squeeze.
"Vibralanguages"
She says that within a few minutes of being given them the phones, students were using the vibration feature to add emphasis to what they were saying or to interrupt the other speaker.
Over time, people even began to transmit their own kind of ad hoc "Morse code", which they would repeat back to show they were following what the other person was saying. "It was pretty easy to communicate, though we didn't specifically pre-arrange codes," says David Milovich, one of the students who tried out the device.
Chang thinks "vibralanguages" could take off for the same reason as texting: sometimes people want to communicate something without everyone nearby knowing what they're saying. "And imagine actually being able to shake someone's hand when you close a business deal," she says.
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Competitors in the ancient event came to grief as they chased an 8lb Double Gloucester down a hill with a daunting one-in-three gradient.
Injuries included gashed heads, severe cuts and bruises, and even fainting fits in the 4,000 crowd.
Among the worst casualties was 27-year-old Craig Brown, who won the annual competition two years ago.
He triumphed again in the first of four men’s races involving 17 hardened cheese-chasers.
But he was left in agony in the next heat, when he tumbled down the steep slope and ended lying in a crumpled heap with a badly cut head and injured neck.
Pub landlord Craig was rushed to hospital from the course at Cooper’s Hill in Brockworth, Gloucs — but was given the allclear following X-rays.
He said afterwards: “It was the worst fall I’ve ever had in my life. It was absolutely horrendous.
“I really didn’t think I would take a fall like that — the race was a lot worse than last time I did it.” Curious spectators from as far afield as Germany, Israel and South Korea gathered to watch the crazy contest.
The bizarre sport goes back centuries and is believed to have originated as a fertility rite.
Despite the injury toll, organiser Richard Jeffries insisted the day had been “a great success”.
He said: “There are always casualties and this is probably the most dangerous thing ordinary members of the public can take part in nowadays.
“But the injuries are not usually that serious and we do warn people what to expect. It’s a great British tradition and we’re determined to keep it alive.”
The women’s race was won by Saskia Thomas, 25 — who works as a barmaid at Craig’s pub, the Plough Inn at Ford, near Stowon-the-Wold, Gloucs.
Other winners were former jockey Simon Fowler, 26, from Cheltenham, and 16-year-old schoolboy Jack Williams from Brockworth.
*********************
Vibrating rubber cellphones could be the next big thing in mobile communications, allowing people to communicate by squishing the phone to transmit vibrations along with their spoken words. According to a research team at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the idea will make phoning more fun.
Many mobile phones can already be made to vibrate instead of ring when you do not want people to know you are getting a call. But these vibrations, caused by a motor spinning an eccentric weight inside the device, are too crude for subtle communication, says Angela Chang of the lab's Tangible Media Group. "They're either on or off," she says.
But when you grip Chang's prototype latex cellphone, your fingers and thumb wrap around five tiny speakers which vibrate against your skin around 250 times per second. Beneath these speakers sit pressure sensors, so you can transmit vibration as well as receiving it.
When you squeeze with a finger, a vibration signal is transmitted to your caller's corresponding finger, its strength dependent on how hard you squeeze.
"Vibralanguages"
She says that within a few minutes of being given them the phones, students were using the vibration feature to add emphasis to what they were saying or to interrupt the other speaker.
Over time, people even began to transmit their own kind of ad hoc "Morse code", which they would repeat back to show they were following what the other person was saying. "It was pretty easy to communicate, though we didn't specifically pre-arrange codes," says David Milovich, one of the students who tried out the device.
Chang thinks "vibralanguages" could take off for the same reason as texting: sometimes people want to communicate something without everyone nearby knowing what they're saying. "And imagine actually being able to shake someone's hand when you close a business deal," she says.
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