Around this time of year every year lots of little regional villages and hamlets have fetes, fairs and parades. They’re all about Spring and the coming of summer, they have a pagan feel to them, and are supposedly ancient tradition, though many of them have been ‘revived’ at some point or another by people that fell asleep before the end of the Wicker Man.

Children dance round a May Pole, (which we all know is meant to represent a proud upright engorged phallus). The men Morris Dance with bells tied to their ankles clacking their rods together while waving handkerchiefs in the air and drinking real ale, (which we all know is meant to represent a golden piss shower.)

I’ve made a little collage of some of the nutty looking types you get at these things:

There’s the Padstow 'Obby 'Oss, that’s the guy dressed a bit like a that iconic Abu Garib picture, except he looks like he’s got a PVC patio table round his neck.

The Rochester Sweeps Festival, they’re the guys that have blacked up. I bet that took some explaining to H.R. People have been sent to ‘diversity training’ for much less in my office.

The Jack in the Green, he’s the green fellow and the walking tree is also a Jack.

The Wessex Morris Men, bottom left, apparently they chase the Dorset Ouser, no picture of him, he’s probably rather reclusive. Those Wessex Morris Men get up at 5.20 in the morning dance on the Cern Abbas giant (a giant chalk man with a giant chalk hard-on etched into the side of a hill) have breakfast and pursue the Ouse round the town.

And bottom right’s The Maypole.

So as you can see it is all rather odd, with real ale types, that may or may not have their own basement dungeon.

I was thinking about how weird all this stuff was last year. I think I had just seen an episode of countryfile. They were in some town where it was tradition for someone to dress up as a straw man and chase after women. I think the tradition was something like, if you get caught you have a baby, so I assume it wasn't just the straw that was prickly (boom boom).

I'd spent that weekend canoeing in the Wye valley, which is on the Wales England border, it was the best weather of the entire summer and everything was lovely. We were in a pub in Gloucestershire, near my friend's Mum's house, it was Sunday night, the May bank holiday was the next day, and I decided to start my own May tradition. At closing time I decided to parade home from the pub in the middle of the night naked, except for a green cycling cape, which I did.

This weekend is the first anniversary of my new tradition. A completely organic, spontaneously created tradition, and as fate would have it I'm going back to the village this weekend. This is a total coincidence. I was invited to celebrate the birthday of rising Internet star Becky. No one had remembered my tradition, but I am determined it shall live on. This is a vital part of the rural identity. It is important that traditions like this are carried on down the ages, by carrying on this tradition year after year future generations gain a real connection with the ways and customs of their ancestors.

Do you think I can get a grant from English Heritage?