AS Wycombe’s dignitaries prepare to potentially be humiliated for pilling on the pounds at the taxpayers’ expense, we take a fun look at other wacky traditions from around the country.

The Yorkshire Pudding Boat Race

Is just what it says on the [baking] tin – people jump inside of giant Yorkshire puddings made of egg and flour and race along Bob’s Pond in Brawby, in North Yorkshire.

World Toe Wrestling Championships

Wrestlers go toe-to-toe, quite literally, in a best-of-three fight until a champion is crowned. Offensive smelling feet are banned from taking part in the contest held in Fenny Bentley, Derbyshire.

Cheese Rolling

Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling has been summarised as “twenty young men chase a cheese off a cliff and tumble 200 yards to the bottom, where they are scraped up by paramedics and packed off to hospital.” It’s worth noting the winner takes the cheese home, so it’s worth the pain.

The Maldon Mud Race

Competitors donned in their best fancy-dress get down and dirty as they race through 400m of waist-deep mud in River Blackwater in Essex.

Burning the Clavie

A barrel is filled with tar and wood chips, set alight and rolled through the streets of Burghead, Morayshire. Anyone that can retrieve a piece of the burning barrel is said to receive good luck over the next 12 months.

The World Worm Charming Championships

Forget dancing poisonous snakes, enticing worms out of the soil with music and vibrations attracts the crowds in Willaston, Cheshire. Incredibly, there are 18 strict rules competitors must abide by but, like most sports, drugs – including water – are banned.

Bucks Free Press: The firm is working with a reptile expert to establish a new habitat for the protected species.

UK Wife-Carrying Championships

Husbands chuck their wives over their shoulder and race to the finishing line, hurdling hay bales and buckets of water, in a bid to claim the massive first prize of a barrel of ale. Thirsty work.

World Gurning Championship

No such list would be complete without the famous gurning championship. The opposite to a beauty pageant, participants rock up to the Egremont Crab Fair in Cumbria to pull their ugliest face.

Bucks Free Press: The Year in Pictures - 2013 -

The World Stone Skimming Championships

We’ve all tried it at the beach or a river, but professional stone throwers from around the world descend on Easdale Island to skim a stone as far as they can within a designated lane. It must bounce at least three times.

Mayor Making

Dignitaries hop on to a seated-scale in the middle of High Wycombe and are weighed to see if they have been dining out at the public’s expense. The crowd will boo if the Town Crier shouts “and some more” – while councillors and the Mayor are treated as heroes if the cry is “no more”.

Mayor Making takes place in Frogmoor from about 11.45am on Saturday.