A TikToker has sparked a debate after claiming to have driven up the UK's steepest hill, where he alleges 10 people fail every day. The user, known as DavetheDriver, shared a video of his journey through Oakamoor, a village in Staffordshire, en route to Alton Towers theme park.

The footage shows Dave navigating a steep road after passing the Cricketer's Arms pub. As he continues, it becomes evident that the challenging stretch of road extends for quite a distance.

Throughout his ascent, Dave encounters several tight bends and corners with limited visibility of oncoming traffic. "This is the steepest road in the UK," he claimed in the video's caption, adding, "At least 10 cars every day fail to make it to the top,".

Since being posted on TikTok on Friday, September 27, the clip has garnered over 3.3 million views and approximately 143,800 likes. It's one of many videos Dave has shared on his account, with others accumulating over 1 million views in total.

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However, not everyone agreed with Dave's claim about the hill's steepness. Several commenters suggested that either Sutton Bank in North Yorkshire or Porlock Hill in Somerset holds the title for the steepest hill in the UK.

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In addition, Matthew chipped in with skepticism commenting, "When does it get steep? That's just a normal Scottish road."

Porlock Hill has been noted as the UK's steepest A-road boasting gradients of 25 per cent in some parts. The hill ascends roughly 725 feet in less than a mile.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18926791

Liquid Slam's ad campaign for their "Big Game" line of snacks and sugary beverages was pulled almost immediately.

IMDb

Liquid Slam's ad campaign for their "Big Game" line of snacks and sugary beverages was pulled almost immediately.

IMDb

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18925839

Good news! Following up from this https://feddit.uk/post/18671151

David Jakins, 82, known as "King Conker", won the tournament in Southwick, Northamptonshire, last Sunday for the first time after competing since 1977.

But his long-awaited victory was marred when a cheating scandal erupted after a fake steel conker, painted brown, was later found in the veteran competitor's pocket.

His opponent in the final Alastair Johnson-Ferguson told The Daily Telegraph he raised concerns after his conker "disintegrated in one hit, and that just doesn't happen".

The chairman of the organising committee said the steel conker was indistinguishable from a real one, with its weight the only giveaway.

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"The investigation has found no evidence that the steel conker was used. King Conker has been cleared of suspicion, and his name is being engraved on the trophy."

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Mr Jakins won the men's competition but lost in the overall final to women's champion Kelci Banschbach, originally from the United States, who only took up the game last year when she moved to Suffolk.

The championships have been held since 1965 and organisers say they have raised £420,000 for charity.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/18925844

A children’s soft play centre has removed its hanging “body bag” Halloween decorations after concerns were raised by parents.

Rugrats and Halfpints in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, has apologised over the objects resembling human corpses covered in black plastic.

Some appeared to be wrapped with tape bearing the words “caution” and “danger” and were hanging upside down from poles adjoining one of the soft play structures, according to pictures posted online.

A children’s soft play centre has removed its hanging “body bag” Halloween decorations after concerns were raised by parents.

Rugrats and Halfpints in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, has apologised over the objects resembling human corpses covered in black plastic.

Some appeared to be wrapped with tape bearing the words “caution” and “danger” and were hanging upside down from poles adjoining one of the soft play structures, according to pictures posted online.

It’s time to dust off your VCR and clean the heads, because Alien: Romulus is coming to VHS as a limited edition on December 3rd alongside the other physical releases, director Fede Alvarez announced during “a special Beyond Fest-partnered screening” in Los Angeles yesterday.

The “fully functioning VHS tape” is meant to celebrate 45 years since the Alien franchise first (chest) burst into theaters, 20th Century Studios wrote in a release emailed to The Verge. It’ll present the movie, appropriately, in a 4:3 aspect ratio (hopefully without pan-and-scan). It also comes in a slick, vintage-style sleeve.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has dismissed suggestions that plans to provide weight loss jabs to unemployed people with obesity are "dystopian".

The UK government is partnering with pharmaceutical giant Lilly who are running a five-year trial in Greater Manchester to test if the weight-loss drug Mounjaro can help get more people back to work and prevent obesity-related diseases to ease the strain on the NHS in England.

The announcement prompted a backlash, with accusations that the government was stigmatising unemployed individuals and reducing people to their economic value.

Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting said the jabs were part of a broader healthcare plan, adding that he was "not interested in some dystopian future where I involuntarily jab unemployed people who are overweight".

Alex Lang was flying his motored paraglider around the Great Pyramid in Egypt when he saw something odd in the distance.

Intrigued, the adventurer moved in for a closer look.

When he was finally able to make out the mysterious figure, it was the last thing he was expecting- a dog that had somehow made its way to the apex of the 455ft structure to bark at 'birds’.

Viewers were impressed by the dog but were all left with the same question after watching the video: how did it get up there?

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However, while some might like to follow in the footsteps of the dog, humans are banned from climbing to the top. Offenders could face up to three years in prison, and in 2016, a teenager was banned from visiting Egypt again after making the ascent.

In 1964, two young academics clambered into a red Mini and, armed with a mountain of printed slips, set out to conduct what would become the definitive survey of English folklore and traditions for the next 60 years.

John Widdowson and Paul Smith went to town centres, ­community halls, Women’s Institute meetings. They handed the simple forms out to anyone who visited Sheffield University, where they were based. And they wanted to know the answer to one simple question: what do you know to be true?

Now held in the university’s archives, the thousands of replies make for illuminating reading, creating a patchwork of observances, superstitions and local legends, passed down through families and communities.

“Don’t bring hawthorn blossom into the house. It’s bad luck,” wrote David Smith of London, who had learned this from his mother, Molly, then living in Scarborough.

The story related by Florence Swaby of Hertfordshire was perhaps a little more dramatic: “Just outside the village, part of the road is called the white highway, and at that point there are two large open fields and the devil haunts there. This is the story handed down from my great grandmother and really happened …”

Exactly six decades on, the Survey of Language and Folklore is finally being updated, with a more scientific method than two men in a Mini handing out questionnaires almost at random. The Centre for Contemporary Legend, based at Sheffield Hallam University, is to conduct the National Folklore Survey, financed with £271,000 of government money from the UK Research and Innovation body.

The project will be led by David Clarke along with Diane Rodgers, also of Sheffield Hallam, and Ceri Houlbrook and Owen Davies who founded the MA Folklore Studies course at Hertfordshire University. It will be conducted by Ipsos-UK, ­polling almost 3,000 people in the first phase to create a clearer picture of what folklore means today.

The new survey aims to address “the lack of robust research evidence into the cultural value of folklore in post-Brexit, post-pandemic, multicultural England. It aims to create new data to answer two research questions: ‘How have folkloric beliefs and practices shaped England’s social, cultural and spiritual identity?’ and ‘To what extent are ideas of nationalism and colonial attitudes informed by contemporary notions of English folklore?’”

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“You might think that in an increasingly technological world we have no place for folklore, but it seems to be the opposite. Technology and mobile phones create a kind of disenchantment in people’s lives, and I think they’ve started to realise that. The revival of interest in folklore is a wonderful thing, and long may it continue.”

A man says he is lucky to be alive after being attacked by a “sexually frustrated” dolphin which experts believe is responsible for terrorising a Japanese town all summer.

Takuma Goto had been swimming off the town of Tsuruga in central Japan with a friend earlier this summer when they were attacked by a lone dolphin.

Experts believe a single dolphin, which may be sexually frustrated, could be responsible for at least 15 attacks on swimmers in Fukui this summer, up from five incidents last summer and one in 2022.

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“I knew it was not a shark, but it came straight at me,” he said, adding that he did nothing to attract or antagonise the dolphin, but that it nonetheless began a sustained assault.

A surfer eventually came to Mr Goto’s rescue as onlookers watched in horror from the beach. Once he was ashore, he washed the bite wounds with water. “The insides of my finger were popping out,” he said, and was taken to a nearby hospital.

The 23-year-old, who works in financial sales, was left with a massive gash on his left index finger, which required five stitches, as well as bite wounds to his left wrist and forearm and his right hand and upper arm.

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Experts also believe the dolphin may be sexually frustrated following reports in other incidents that it attempted to press its genitals against its victims.

“Bottlenose dolphins are highly social animals and this sociality can be expressed in very physical ways,” Dr Simon Allen, a biologist and principal investigator with the Shark Bay Dolphin Research project, told the BBC.

“Just as in humans and other social animals, hormonal fluctuations, sexual frustration or the desire to dominate might drive the dolphin to injuring the people it interacts with. Since they are such powerful animals, this can lead to serious injury in humans.”

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