Curry Mallet, a village of 302 in southern Somerset, has broken ranks with the rest of England’s small settlements by announcing publicly that it does not want drivers to go through it whether they drive carefully or not. A sign to this effect was put up at the entry to the village last night.
Some analysts now fear that many other harrassed hamlets may follow suit. Potentially it might lead to the worst outbreak of rural off-handness since 1976, when a dissident group of Suffolk villages asked tour coaches if they wouldn’t mind awfully not parking in the lanes by their manor houses.
‘I’m fed up with doing the polite middle-class thing,’ Curry Mallet told reporters at a press conference last night. ‘Are these townie muppets interested in my Norman church? Are they even stopping for a reasonably priced lunch at the Dog & Partridge? Are they bollocks. They’re just cutting through me to get to the bright lights of Taunton.’
Instead of welcoming careful drivers the village has erected a new sign aimed at passing motorists which simply reads: ‘Polite Notice: F*@k Off’.
