I still bear the scars of last weekend’s Word Egg Throwing Championships.

The ignominy of defeat has faded slightly, but now the skin on my forehead and the top of my head has started to flake. It was sunny all day in Lincolnshire last Sunday. Who knew such a thing could happen in Britain in June?

When I have a full day of sunshine and no lotion, my skin burns, I go red and a few days later – which is now – I start to flake. I am leaving little white flakes of me wherever I go whenever I rub my head. It is not an attractive physical characteristic.

Meanwhile, still on the subject of eggs, yesterday I got an e-mail from this blog’s occasional Canadian correspondent, Anna Smith in Vancouver. When she last wrote a week ago, she was claiming it was a bit dull in the Dominion. Now she tells me things are perking up a bit. Her e-mail started thus:

“NAKED INTRUDER COOKS EGGS, say the headlines. A man broke into a house near Trout Lake, had a shower and was frying himself some eggs when he was discovered by the home owner. The clean naked egg frying intruder has been receiving compliments from admirers on the comments pages of the local news.”

When he was confronted by the surprised home-owner he fled the scene, still naked and was arrested later by police, near Trout Lake, still naked.

According to CBC TV News, this happened at 7.00pm in the evening and Vancouver police constable Brian Montague reported: “We think he was on drugs at the time. I don’t know exactly what drugs, This incident highlights the need for homeowners to be careful about leaving doors and windows open during the warm summer weather. 400 of the 1,157 residential break-ins this year showed no sign of forced entry. Ensuring your doors and windows are locked is a simple deterrent.”

Meanwhile elsewhere, Anna tells me…

“In Surrey – a wretched and rapidly growing city on the eastern shore of the Fraser River occupying the psychic position of Essex to London – a young couple have been arrested on Vancouver Island, and accused of being home grown terrorists, with pressure cooker bombs similar to the ones used in Boston. They’re supposed to have planned to cause explosions during Canada Day celebrations outside the provincial legislature buildings.

“The male of the pair had been a punk musician and anarchist, but lately things had gone downhill… Acquaintances of the couple have reacted in disbelief and have suggested that they must have been assisted… Others were amazed that the pair had made it all the way from Surrey to Vancouver island (about sixty kilometers) and wondered how they had managed to afford the (£10) ferry ride…”

According to CBC, on Canada Day last year, the two accused – John Nuttall and his wife Amanda Korody – planned to celebrate Canada’s freedom from England “by shooting each other in the face with brightly coloured paintballs.”

Fellow paintballer Randy Tetzlaff was quoted as saying that Amanda Korody came to play only once that he could remember and seemed intimidated by the game. Then she and Nuttall stopped coming last August, and he never saw them again.

Nine months ago on a YouTube, Nuttall responded to another commenter who insulted Muhammad:

“Hey kafir, you wanna say that to my face? I am a Mujahid and, inshAllah, I will die a Shaheed!” (ie “I am a Muslim who believes in jihad and, God-willing, I will die a martyr.”) He added: “Call me so we can set this up,” and included his phone number.

Meanwhile, says Anna…

“On Canada Day this year I escaped from downtown and went out into the Annacis Channel of the Fraser River on a Zodiac inflatable boat.

“Several irregularly shaped compressions appeared, crop circle like, on the beds of water reeds that dart out from the downstream tip of Annacis Island. I named them aqua circles and tried to imagine a monster capable of creating such a massive flattening.

“Perhaps a shoal of giant mud eels? An amphibian white sturgeon? As the sun set, I watched the shadows sharpen on Mount Baker, the snow covered volcano that stands like Mount Fuji to the south. A local artist took dozens of photos of Mount Baker from different angles, the way Hokusai did with his woodcuts, only the local ones featured trailer parks and dredger moorings for the foreground.

“Oh – I almost forgot to mention – There is also a syphilis epidemic.”