Pen spinning craze hits Thailand

Last Updated: Friday September 07 2007 13:06 GMT

news.bbc.co.uk

Extreme sports usually involve some pretty pricey equipment, but for the latest craze, all you need is a pen!

Pen spinning is taking classrooms in Thailand by storm, as thousands of people are learning amazing tricks.

The craze involves twirling your pen at high speed in complicated ways. Top spinners reckon they know up to 200 different moves.

Clubs have been springing up throughout Thailand, and there are at least 10,000 members of an online spinning club.

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Yeah, and I have 160 members in my year.

My students still seem to prefer picking their nose. The new pen spinning craze hasn't caught on yet.

I've got pen spinners, book spinners and time spinners

My students still seem to prefer picking their nose. The new pen spinning craze hasn't caught on yet.

I also have some very prolific bogey hunters in my year.

I have seen this going on for a few years; I try and twirl it and it hits the person sitting closest to me.

I think I need a tutor.

My students still seem to prefer picking their nose. The new pen spinning craze hasn't caught on yet.

I also have some very prolific bogey hunters in my year.

I had some in my year ... but that was 30 years ago

I find that a lot of students I have come across don't have time to pick their nose in between sleeping and talking. However, research into ESL has found that the most prolific speakers can talk and dig at the same time

Recently I did witness my first pen spinner. He was the only one in the class and I was impressed by his skills, even though he struggled to finish his test paper in time. He could be one of the founder members of the craze. The other kids are a bit scared of him. Is there a pen spinning mafia too? Do rival gangs distinguish themselves by using different colour ink or different brands of pen?

My big concern is that some of the prolific bogey hunters will start using a spinning pen up their nose. I for one, do not want to have to start removing pens from said orafice