This excerpt is from the book entitled 40 Strange Groups. Little is known about them, hence the shortness of the book and the low price.

Cedric the Camel has an important role to play at the Bad Breath Club in Shanghai. Cedric has bad breath on a permanent basis, so who better than Cedric to be the unwitting judge of the monthly bad breath contest held at the zoo?

Contestants eat garlic, drink lots of coffee, and sprinkle pepper and curry powder on their tuna and onion salads in the days leading up to the contest. These salads are washed down with tomato juice.

The aim of the contest is to make Cedric react in some way, the more movement from the camel the better, the more disdainful the sneer the more points are awarded by the judges. If Cedric runs away or faints then the contest is stopped immediately as a winner has been found.   

Contestants draw numbers from an old toilet and take it in turns to breathe over Cedric for one minute. Their hands must be held behind their back at all times and they must not make eye contact with the camel, speak, or spit.

The winner of the contest is not at liberty to divulge their special recipe for their success, but they are expected to brush their teeth and use breath freshner before giving their victory speech.

Oliver Shadbolt has managed to win the contest 4 times in the last 3 years and puts his success down to garlic and curry powder: “Chewing raw garlic on the day of the contest is certainly a great idea, but you need to have eaten garlic in two meals the previous day and had curry powder sprinkled on the sauces in those meals. Drink coffee all day and don’t clean your teeth for at least three days prior. Cedric doesn’t think much of white teeth, so smiling at him when breathing noxious fumes over him is a good plan.”