(AP) --

The inventor of the wicker car and tricycle catamaran was named Britain's top eccentric Thursday, besting a field of oddballs that included a garden-gnome rescuer and a "superhero" who bathes in baked beans.

Triumphant eccentric Lyndon Yorke said the honor was "all about being British."

Yorke, an aerial surveyor from Marlow Bottom, west of London, sails the River Thames on an Edwardian tricycle-cum-catamaran and once crossed Afghanistan in a salvaged Model A Ford he'd discovered with a tree growing through it.

He beat 10 regional finalists to win the title of British Eccentric 2001. Runners-up included "baked bean superhero" Captain Beany, who ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in June's general election, and 64-year-old Ann Atkin, who runs a sanctuary for garden gnomes.

"It is a wonderful honor," Yorke said. "It hasn't quite sunk in yet."

For his eccentricity, Yorke won $2,860. Part, he said, goes to charity. Part will finance a holiday at Sweden's Ice Hotel.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

Answers

"Bathes in baked beans"??????

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

I thought the poor person's jacuzzi was to eat a can of beans and then go sit in a bathtub. . . . .

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2001

LOL Meemur!

-- Anonymous, October 29, 2001