THERE was a political element to our photograph of pancake-tossing, and readers responded in kind. “It’s the same as Brexit: a toss-up between a hard and soft landing” (John Saxbee); “The Russians were rumoured to have tampered with the pancakes” (Patrick Irwin); and two from Richard Hough: “Good to see Labour distributing food to the poor” and “The shortage of cooks in Parliament was, of course, blamed on savage Tory cuts.”
More generally, there was: “You wait 150 years for a Super Blueberry Blood-orange Pancake, and then three come along at once” (Richard Barnes); “This is my Ascension Day Special . . . self-raising flour” (Ian Barge); and “The annual flour, eggs, and milk juggling has begun” (Chris Coupe).
In the naughty corner, John Radford suggested: “If this photo goes viral, pancake puns will be coming in their Shroves.” He followed this up with “Crêpesit”. We also had: “Concerned that their pancake mix was too lumpy, St Paul showed them an even batter way” (Jonnie Parkin); and “Why do pancakes always make people throw up?” (John Saxbee).
We had cynicism: “All look up nervously, and we’ll edit the pancakes in afterwards” (Valerie Budd); fantasy: “The pans were merely a precaution: the Jedi training was coming along just fine” (Andrew Greenhough); theology: “As an explanation of the Trinity, it fell flat” (Valerie Budd); and crime: “The aprons were the obvious clue: It was Mrs White, Miss Scarlet, and Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with the frying pan” (Andrew Greenhough again).
There were also “The modern halos seemed to have a mind of their own — and one was definitely slipping” (Martin Miller); and two more from Patrick Irwin: “Alastair Stewart suddenly realised that he had lost his teeth” and “The pancake race was now option 6C in the Common Worship rite for Shrove Tuesday.”
We especially liked: “The pancake-tossers were clearly ready for the ‘catch it in my mouth’ technique” (Chris Coupe); “If they didn’t catch the manna, supper was going to be grim” (Eric Lishman); and “The rehabilitated pancakes were released into the wild” (Bridget Swan).
This week’s winner will, once again, receive fairtrade chocolate kindly donated by Divine (divinechocolate.com).