The Spectator

Barometer: Who can use the word ‘royal’?

issue 29 February 2020

What a hole

The World Health Organisation added processed meats to its list of ‘known’ carcinogens. A few of the other things which have been claimed to be linked to cancer in the past fortnight:

A hole built into the wall of a NatWest bank branch in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, became an unlikely tourist destination with five-star reviews on TripAdvisor. Some other surprising attractions:

— The Bude tunnel is a 230-yard Perspex tunnel linking a supermarket to its car park in Bude, Cornwall. It started to gain five-star reviews when it was decorated with Christmas lights. ­­

­— Streets of bungalows in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, became a destination for Chinese tourists, with one telling reporters that the village brought you ‘closer to the simplicity of your original self’. A more likely explanation is that tourists on coach trips had been dumped there rather than pay an extra £53 to visit Blenheim Palace.

— The A272 so impressed a Dutch visitor, Pieter Boogaart, that he published an entire book about it in 2000.

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