Initiation Rite Clarification (Number 1 in a series of 326)

Many of our members have been keen to learn more about the Club's traditional initiation rites. For example,

'The need for the 'Now That's What I Call Music! 23' CD and the plastic spoons is self-evident, but why the fingerless gloves?'

or

'Am I allowed to hopscotch across the pontoon bridge, or does it have to be eleven consecutive forward rolls?'

or

'Why would Len Goodman do that to a copy of the National Trust Handbook? Surely that invalidates both his membership and his lucrative contract with the BBC?'

So, to aid our members, the Club Ritual, Tradition, and National Trust Handbook-related Legal Affairs Committee thought it wise to explain more about the Club's history and initiation rites.

1. Why it has to be clockwise

The Club was founded long before clocks were invented in the early 1950's. Consequently, the Perambulation Club had no concept of direction when they first began to perambulate. Members would head off in random directions causing confusion, collisions and traumatising the red squirrels, zebra, herring, and woolly mammoths that were the main inhabitants of the Great Park at the time. Traumatised herring in particular can take months of specialist therapy and group sessions before they are ready to ride any form of self-propelled transport, let alone the unicycle they require in the breeding season.

One of the Club's founders, Magnus Barelegs, the King of Norway, was particularly concerned by this, not least because he numbered several herring among his immediate family. Even today a herring is 17th in line to the Norwegian Throne, situated between a-ha and Princess Michael of Kent. His Majesty the King decreed that all Perambulations should begin at the point of the park furthest from Trondheim* and follow the migration pattern of the noble herring. Thanks to King Magnus' empathy, vision, and a monarch's ability to make arbitrary and senseless declarations and have them taken seriously, the direction of the perambulation was enshrined for ever more. Many centuries later, Sir Isaac Newton took a break from his job buffing apples ready for the Royal Table, spotted the Perambulation Club in full, magnificently synchronised herring formation, and immediately invented time.

Hopefully members can now fully appreciate the significance of the clockwise section of the initiation ceremony. It celebrates the Club's involvement in Newton's greatest discovery and our long association with the noble herring, the king of all species of bicycling fish. May the Club never go anti-clockwise.

*Blacknest Gate, park at the Thai Restaurant

**Conventional historians, the Encyclopedia Britannica, Wikipedia and the family of Sir Isaac Newton dispute our version of events. Richard Hills has got to them all.

Welcome Back to the Old Windsor Townswomen's Guild

This is a historic day for the Perambulation Club. A Victory over Hate to stand alongside the Montgomery Freedom Riders, the Good Friday Agreement, and when Nasty Nick was kicked out of Big Brother One for daring to use a pencil.

From today, the Perambulation Club welcomes members from Old Windsor. The Club's Truth & Reconciliation subcommittee have decided that if the feud is ever to end, we must make the first move. Earlier this year we approached the Lady Mayoress of Old Windsor, Lisa Scott-Lee from Steps and Totally Scott-Lee, to arrange a secret summit on neutral territory; the delightful home of Sir Elton John and his partner David Furnish. The Perambulation Club, of course, claim all parts of the park north and east of Elton's hedge, and his second-best gazebo forms the start of Mayoress Scott-Lee's jurisdiction.

Diplomatic Relations between the Club and the Government of Old Windsor have been suspended ever since they cheated their way to victory in the 2004 Larry Grayson Memorial Sumo Wrestling Basho between the Club and the Old Windsor Townswomen's Guild. The winners of the Basho earn the rights to wear very tall hats in the presence of Her Majesty The Queen for the remainder of the year. In 2004, the OW TG team flagrantly disregarded the conventions of the 200 year-old competition*, and served own-brand squash** at half-time instead of the traditional Kia-Ora Orange (No added sugar). The shock to the systems of our delicate Rikishi upset their concentration, and also left their oranginess levels dangerously low, opening the risk of attack by Crows and their allies. Our wrestlers were placed at a significant disadvantage, having to watch for avian ambush as well as ground-level onslaughts. When we lost an official appeal was logged with the Competition Judges; Sir Elton John's gazebo designer, Captain Haddock from the Adventures of Tintin, and the hated Richard Hills. Hills, who we believe to have been in the pocket of Lisa Scott-Lee ever since he secretly stood in for H on the 'Steptacular' Tour of 1999, naturally sided with Old Windsor.

The Club were coming to terms with the injustice, but when Scott-Lee trotted into the Queen's Monthly Pub Quiz and Meat Raffle wearing an absurdly elongated cerise trilby, we had witnessed enough. From then on the Club has been closed to the citizens of Old Windsor.

But no-one has benefitted from this. We live in daily fear of belligerent assault from Crows and Jackdaws, the historical allies of Old Windsor. It is no fun having to carry a Terry's Chocolate Orange everywhere in case of Corvid Onslaughts. On the other side, the people of Old Windsor have suffered incredibly from the embargo on their use of the word 'Boombastic' and their supply lines of Strawberry Cornettos being cut by the partisan wing of our Tramp Army.

But that is all history. Mayor Scott-Lee has agreed to measure any future headgear with callipers to ensure it does not exceed the height of a mature Shetland Pony, and we in the Club will be responsible for all citrus-based refreshments at future matches. To celebrate, the Club and the OW TG will be having a pro-celebrity Sumo-Wrestling Match in the near future. Any interested Members should register their interest by sounding their Club Horn thrice. Wherever you are, we will hear you.

*The first contestants in 1804 were the Prince of Wales, later George IV, and his estranged wife Princess Caroline of Brunswick, whose combined weight has never been equalled by contestants since; even including the weight of the horsebox we use to convey our Sumo. Princess Caroline still holds the club record for stuffing Maltesers in the mouth with 45. This may be the year the record finally falls.

**Post-match lab tests revealed it to be Tesco Sun Sip.