HOLY pancakes Batman!

A pair of mismatched caped crusaders came to the aid of sick children in the region today, in a charity pancake race in York.

Managers and staff from Animal Care pet centre challenged Minster FM to a pancake tossing race, with a few obstacles thrown in at Chessingham Park, near Dunnington.

The pancake race was given a little extra zest, and kept to the animal theme, when Animal Care general manager, Neil Macdonald, and special products manager, Martin Suddaby, agreed to take part for the store - as Batman and Robin.

The duo's antics were expected to raise a few smiles, as not only is Robin several inches taller than Batman, but the pair have declared: "We want to win - and they are going to get wet."

All funds raised will be donated to Martin House Hospice for Children in Boston Spa.

Denise McGiven, of Animal Care, who suggested the charity as a beneficiary, said: "We want to raise as much as we can, to help this charity who do really good work helping others."

Meanwhile, scientists at Leeds University today revealed the perfect way to flip a pancake without it ending up on the floor, or even the ceiling.

Many people in the UK will keep up the tradition of Shrove Tuesday today, but the majority admit that they lack confidence when it comes to the all-important flip.

Physicists at the West Yorkshire campus revealed the unlikely answer to the age-old problem - the angular velocity of the pancake equals the square root of Pi times the gravity, divided by the distance the pancake is from the elbow times four.

Get this right and, apparently, the pancake is destined to land back in the frying pan.

Updated: 10:50 Tuesday, March 04, 2003