Outside Edge

In the week when Ben Southall secured the "best job in the world" – caretaker of Hamilton Island in Queensland – and a salary of £74,000 after promoting his ostrich-racing prowess, 879 Bangladeshi children who were sold into slavery as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates have been compensated just £950,000 in all. It's four years since the UAE signed an agreement with Unicef to outlaw the trade. No doubt they got the hump, as will US schools whose favourite fund-raising event, donkey basketball, has been banned for animal cruelty. It was invented in the Depression as a cheap diversion. To take it away during a recession might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

150

The number of times Huddersfield's Malvin Camara has seen 'Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'. He watches the 1971 film before every match to bring him luck. Sadly he hasn't played for five months now. Oompa loompa!

Mindless pursuits of the week

Animal welfare activists might raise a hackle or two over Mike the Headless Chicken's Festival in Fruita, Colorado this week. Mike was a Wyandotte rooster who somehow survived a beheading in 1945 and was kept alive for 18 months, his bungling executioner Lloyd Olsen feeding him with an eyedropper into his open oesophagus. The miracle is celebrated every year with lawn-mower races, a 5km "headless chicken" run and a version of bingo in which chicken droppings fall on a grid to choose numbers. Expect plenty of bingo wings on display. Sadly, a plan to bring the festival to Wales has been abandoned, but how about a trip to the Bird's Nest stadium in Beijing instead?

Good week for

Bradley Smith, 18-year-old won his first 125cc Grand Prix in Jerez... Paul and Sarah Clarke, sent 150,000 footballs to Africa with their Great Football Giveaway charity... Newcastle Eagles, won British Basketball League play-off final to secure domestic treble... and Summer Jones, five-year-old, came second in National Junior Troutmasters Fish-Off.

Bad week for

Manny Ramirez, LA Dodgers slugger banned for 50 matches after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs... Moonlit Park, the Queen's horse, also failed a drugs test... Toby Flood and Tom Shanklin, ruled out of the Lions tour of South Africa because of injury... and Islamic Solidarity Games, cancelled because participating nations objected to hosts Iran insisting on using the name Persian Gulf instead of Arabian Gulf.

Cheese roll of the week

The May Day Bank Holiday was the occasion of the 50th annual cheese-rolling contest in Stilton, Cambridgeshire. But Outside Edge was stunned to hear that real cheese is not used, unlike the altogether more exciting Cooper's Hill version in Gloucestershire on 25 May. Their 200-yard slope attains gradients of 1:1 in places and a 7lb double Gloucester apparently reaches speeds of 70mph. Some 3,000 fans gather to see contestants chase after it, usually in vain, and there are many injuries. The winner gets to keep the cheese, though one had his cheese stolen while he was receiving treatment for a broken arm. Em-mental! That takes the biscuit. He must have kicked up a stink.

a.tong@independent.co.uk