The Fighting Phalanges!…
Finger wrestling has been used in the Alps as a method of resolving disputes since the 17th century. Now, dueling with digits has become a sport.
Two contestants sit facing each other across a large table, with their fingers threaded into a strong strap. On a signal from the referee, the contest begins, and the competitors pull as hard as they can. The winner is the competitor who successfully pulls their opponent across the table, using just their finger.
In Bavaria, the home of finger wrestling, it’s serious business. Competitors train their fingers for the intense strain (and pain) of competition, by squeezing tennis balls, holding their body weight on their competitive finger, and doing one-finger press-ups… While wrestlers are free to use any finger they wish, the finger of choice is, of course, the middle finger.
Read more about finger wrestling, and see video of the recently-completed 35th Annual Finger Wrestling Championship, at The Sun.
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As we flex our phalanges, we might send prodigious birthday greeting to G.K. Chesterton; he was born on this date in 1874. The author of 80 books, several hundred poems, over 200 short stories, 4000 essays, and several plays, he was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. Chesterton was a columnist for the Daily News, the Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.’s Weekly, and wrote articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica. Chesterton created the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared in a series of short stories, and had a huge influence on the development of the mystery genre; his best-known novel is probably The Man Who Was Thursday.
Chesterton’s faith, which he defended in print and speeches, brought him into conflict with the most famous atheist of the time, George Bernard Shaw, who said (on the death of his “friendly enemy”), “he was a man of colossal genius.”
George Bernard Shaw, Hilaire Belloc, and G. K. Chesterton