Sausages and crash

Cumbria is home to many amazing visitor attractions.

The county boasts myriad places to go and things to do, including delights such as the World Of Beatrix Potter, the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway and historic Dove Cottage. Hell, we’ve even got the Cumberland Pencil Museum.

But lurking over the border in North Yorkshire, something new is coming, something so daring, it could steal away our valuable tourist trade. It is... ‘Sausage World’. Go on, admit it – you want to go already.

Food producer Heck have had plans for a visitor attraction and expansion of their factory in Kirklington approved by councillors, and the new building for groups will doubtlessly draw in the crowds seeking a sighting of sausages, or cheeky chipolata-based action. It’s bound to go with a bang(er).

Co-founder of the company, Andrew Keeble, reckons it will attract “loads of school trips”, before revealing that their machine can turn out a staggering 1,300 sausages every minute. Who doesn’t want to see that?

If Cumbria is to compete against something as amazing as this, we’ll need make sure our attractions are on top form... and the pencil museum will need to sharpen up it’s act.

In other news, oafs-in-cars TV show Top Gear returns this weekend, and despite all the hype about yet more changes to the presenter line-up in the post-Clarkson/Hammond/May era, it will actually still be Matt LeBanc, Chris Harris and Rory Reid messing about in motors.

The next batch of replacements are already out filming for the following series, and have been busy making a mess in Mansfield, with Freddie Flintoff crashing an electric car through a safety barrier and into a market stall.

The town’s mayor, Kate Allsop, seemed rather pleased with the publicity, though, saying that they “should actually name the stall after him – it’s going to be such an icon”.

Flintoff will join Harris and Paddy McGuiness as hosts of the show when it is broadcast later this year. In the meantime, there’s plenty of daftness and fast car fun from the current line-up. Or, if they’re not your cup of petrol, and the revolving-door of presenters is too much, you can always watch Amazon’s ‘The Grand Tour’, where Jezza and co sped off to after their departure from the BBC.

Highbrow entertainment it isn’t. But if you like your innuendo writ large, your humour childish and have a passing interest in cars it might be just the (parking) ticket.

This post first appeared as my 'A wry look at the week' column, in The Mail, on Friday the 15th of February 2019. Whilst the version used on their website retained by title, the print edition ran as "Sausage world will be banging".

Yes, a two-part column! No particular reason why, other than I was really struggling for an idea this week, and both of these subjects got my imagination going, but not enough to stretch out to a full column on their own.

In terrible sausage-related news, it now appears Sausage World may not be delivering a sausage-tastic visitor experience for a while yet, as a later report suggested that EU funding, which was to be utilised to get the facility off the ground, may no longer be available.

(Tape Time: No.69. From 29th of December 1983, a taped-off-the-tele recording of the Top Of The Pops Review of 1983.)