Road signs of the week

Today's Liberal England blog has a picture of the 'Road Sign of the Week' featuring an exclamation mark above the word 'Badgers', plus a link to an even more mysterious one with a solitary exclamation mark on its own.

It reminded me of the first time I ever managed to get anything published in Private Eye. After decades of trying to extract £10 from Lord Gnome, I sent in a picture of the advice on the village sign at Silverstone in Northamptonshire.

As each next issue came out with no sign of my photo, I became increasingly depressed at yet another failure to get something into print.

Then, in the week of that year's British Grand Prix, it turned out that they hadn't lost it after all, the picture appeared in their 'I spy' slot and my cheque from Lord Gnome arrived (and adorned the wall of our loo until it was too late to pay it into the bank).

Since then, however, I think Northamptonshire CC must have changed their village signs, because I'm pretty sure that my version bore the even more suitable legend 'Please drive slowly'.