Egging is the act of throwing eggs at people or property. The eggs are usually raw, but can be hard-boiled or rotten.
The egging of politicians is a well-known form of protest, and egging cars or houses can be done as a form of vandalism, with or without reason, but in some places egging is done for benign or celebratory reasons.
Eggs can easily cause damage when thrown at property, and egging is considered vandalism. When thrown at cars, eggs can dent a body panel or scratch off paint where the shell breaks. Egg whites can damage certain types of vehicle and building paint. Dried egg can be difficult to remove, and removal attempts with scrapers, abrasives or flammable cleaning solvents can damage some surfaces.
Victims of egging may be entitled to financial compensation for the cost of repairs and cleaning, and to fix or replace damaged property. Common charges related to egging are damage to property, vandalism, and nuisance. [1] In more serious cases where injuries have resulted, perpetrators may be charged with assault and fined. [2]
Egging of a person's face can cause serious injuries and eye injury, [3] [4] and may constitute assault and battery. [5] A nurse was blinded in one eye when an egg was thrown at her from a passing car in March 2008 in Dublin. [6] A boy in Long Island lost sight in one eye after teens from a local high school threw eggs out of a passing car on Halloween in 2005. [7]
Eggs are sometimes thrown at people or buildings as a form of protest. High-profile people who have been egged include: David Cameron, [8] Steve Ballmer, [9] Miloš Zeman, [10] [11] Bronisław Komorowski, [12] [13] Arnold Schwarzenegger, [14] John Prescott, [15] [16] [17] Helmut Kohl, Nicolas Sarkozy, Nick Griffin, [18] David Blaine, [19] Richard Prebble, [20] Ed Miliband, [21] Charles III, [22] Nigel Farage, [23] John Tsang, [24] Luis Fortuño, [25] and Rafael Correa. [26]
In 1917, an egg thrown at then Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes led to the formation of the Commonwealth Police. [27] [28]
On 1 June 1970, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson was hit in the face by a raw egg thrown by a member of the Young Conservatives, while campaigning for re-election. [29]
During the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, candidate Viktor Yanukovych was rushed to hospital after he had been hit with an egg (while government officials claimed he was hit by a brick), which became a source of ridicule. [30]
Irish bank AIB was egged in response to the Irish banking crisis of 2009. [31] The Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament was egged by deputies inside the Ukrainian parliament in 2010 as a protest against a natural gas agreement. [32] [33]
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio da Silva had eggs and rocks thrown at his bus by protesters in March 2019 while he was visiting southern Brazil. [29] In July 2017, Maria Victoria Barros, a member of the state assembly in Paraná and daughter of Ricardo Barros, Health Minister during Michel Temer's government, had eggs thrown at her during her wedding as she left the church. [34] After blaming Muslim immigrants for the anti-Muslim Christchurch massacre in March 2019, Australian politician Fraser Anning was egged by a teenager, who was arrested, but later released without charges. [35] While campaigning during the May 2019 Australian federal election, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was the target of an attempted egging by a 24-year-old woman at a Country Women's Association event held at the Albury Entertainment Centre. The egg failed to break on contact with Morrison's head and instead bounced off. The lady was immediately arrested. [36] Former Australian PM Julia Gillard was also egged by protesters in July 2010. [37]
Egging is sometimes associated with certain events and holidays.
In Brazil, it is common to throw eggs at someone on their birthday, with or without their consent, as a friendly prank. [38] [39] Usually, flour is also poured on the person's head after the eggs, with the idea of "a cake being made on their heads". A recent example is when Guarani FC midfielder José Fernando Fumagalli had eggs and wheat flour thrown by his teammates during his 40th birthday celebrations and retirement announcement in 2017. [38] [39] [40] The tradition originated in the 1980s, [38] in Mexico, where it was common to break "cascarones" (eggshells) on a person's head at their birthday party as a vow of good fortune. The eggs were usually filled with confetti and colored with dye or crayons. [39]
Graffiti is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property.
A flour bomb is a fragile container filled with flour for the purpose to be thrown at a person or object to cause an inconvenient and messy stain, called flour bombing.
John Leslie Prescott, Baron Prescott is a British politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and as First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston upon Hull East for 40 years, from 1970 to 2010. He was seen as the political link to the working class in a Labour Party increasingly led by modernising, middle-class professionals such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson and developed a reputation as a key conciliator in the often stormy relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown.
A pancake is a flat cake, often thin and round, prepared from a starch-based batter that may contain eggs, milk and butter, and then cooked on a hot surface such as a griddle or frying pan. It is a type of batter bread. Archaeological evidence suggests that pancakes were probably eaten in prehistoric societies.
An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches.
Arepa is a type of food made of ground maize dough stuffed with a filling, eaten in northern parts of South America since pre-Columbian times, and notable primarily in the cuisine of Colombia and Venezuela, but also present in Bolivia, Ecuador, and Central America.
Torta is a culinary term that can, depending on the cuisine, refer to cakes, pies, flatbreads, sandwiches, or omelettes.
Una película de huevos is a 2006 Mexican animated adventure comedy film produced by Huevocartoon Producciones and distributed by Videocine, and is the first feature film developed by the brand. It is directed by Rodolfo Riva Palacio and Gabriel Riva Palacio and features voices of Bruno Bichir, Angélica Vale and Carlos Espejel.
Property crime is a category of crime, usually involving private property, that includes, among other crimes, burglary, larceny, theft, motor vehicle theft, arson, shoplifting, and vandalism. Property crime is a crime to obtain money, property, or some other benefit. This may involve force, or the threat of force, in cases like robbery or extortion. Since these crimes are committed in order to enrich the perpetrator they are considered property crimes. Crimes against property are divided into two groups: destroyed property and stolen property. When property is destroyed, it could be called arson or vandalism. Examples of the act of stealing property is robbery or embezzlement.
The Vladimir Lenin monument in Kyiv was a statue dedicated to Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. The larger than life-size Lenin monument was built by Russian sculptor Sergey Merkurov from the same red Karelian stone as Lenin's Mausoleum. It was displayed at the 1939 New York World's Fair and erected on Kyiv's main Khreshchatyk Street on 5 December 1946.
Stone throwing or rock throwing, when it is directed at another person, is often considered a form of criminal battery. In certain political contexts, stone-throwing is considered a form of civil resistance.
A zelyonka attack is a form of protest, provocation or violent assault, defined as throwing a solution of brilliant green, a triarylmethane antiseptic dye, on the body of a victim. On top of potential danger of vision loss, it is very hard to remove quickly; the complete natural removal may take up to a week. In the 2010s, zelyonka attacks became widespread in Russia and Ukraine by pro-government activists against anti-government political and other personalities.
Inking or ink throwing is the act of throwing ink at people, or cars. It has been used as a form of political protest in India.
Milkshaking is the act of throwing milkshakes and other drinks at targets as a means of political protest in a manner similar to egging or pieing. The target of a milkshaking is splashed or splattered with a milkshake that is thrown from a cup or bottle. The trend gained popularity in the United Kingdom in May 2019 during the European Parliament election and was used against right-wing and far-right political candidates, such as Tommy Robinson, Nigel Farage and Carl Benjamin, as well as other members of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the Brexit Party.
In various countries, objects have been thrown at politicians for reasons varying from comedic to harmful.
In the evening of 16 May 2001, John Prescott, the British deputy prime minister, was hit in the face by an egg while walking to a Labour Party election rally at the Little Theatre in Rhyl, North Wales, in the run-up to the 2001 United Kingdom general election. Prescott hit the protester who had thrown the egg, agricultural worker Craig Evans who now works as an enforcement officer for Natural Resources Wales, with a left-handed jab. A brief scuffle ensued, during which Prescott was pushed into a wall before police and Labour Party supporters moved Evans away. The incident came on the same day that the Labour Party's election manifesto had been launched. Earlier in the day Prime Minister Tony Blair had been confronted by an angry relative of a patient in a Birmingham hospital, and Home Secretary Jack Straw had been jeered at a conference of the Police Federation of England and Wales.
A statue of Margaret Thatcher stands in her birthplace, the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. The statue is 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 m) high, cast in bronze, and depicts the late British prime minister Baroness Thatcher, dressed in the full ceremonial robes of the House of Lords. It stands on a 10-foot-6-inch (3.2 m) plinth. Created by sculptor Douglas Jennings, and costing £300,000, it was erected on 15 May 2022, on St Peter's Hill Green, close to the Grantham Museum. Eggs were thrown at the statue within two hours of its installation, and a week later red paint was thrown at it. It was formally unveiled on 31 May.
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