The Amazing Race is one kind of race to test a person's mettle. If you want to know just what a pigeon can do, race it. People in Great Britain called "pigeon fanciers" have sports clubs where they see whose pigeon is the fastest. This has been going on for a hundred years. That sounds sports-like to me, but pigeon racing, however popular, isn't officially named a sport in Great Britain. This means that pigeon sports clubs will soon have to pay taxes because the buildings the pigeons are kept in will be taxed. If the sports clubs are official, they don't pay so many taxes or something. The British tax system sounds as complicated as the American one.

One of the arguments for making the pigeon racers official is because their relatives worked so hard during WWII carrying messages to help the troops. That does seem like a good reason to give them a tax break.

Maybe the queen will intervene. She's the patron of pigeons. There's a Royal Pigeon Racing Association that is under the monarch umbrella. Who knew? If you go to the site, you'll see a calendar of events and pigeon news.[via Associated Press]

Filed under: Arts and Culture, United Kingdom, News