Now stand for the National Anthem

I had cause to drive through a series of small villages yesterday.

I was picking up my brother who lives on a farm - PLUG ALERT: It's the Rare Breeds Centre in Kent and it's staffed by the learning disabled adults who both live there in supported housing or come in from home to use the day services provided. For more info on how to visit go here or to support the charity which runs the farm go here. PLUG ENDS.

Anyway, these small villages had a series of...I think the best word is effigies, hanging outside various houses, 'in honour' (you'll understand my use of inverted commas later) of the Queeen's Diamond Jubilee.

I bravely got out of the car several times to photograph some of the best ones. Mum kept the car running though as, despite the streets being eerily empty, we concluded that the villagers were almost definitely waiting in a nearby hedge for a victim to burn along with the effigies inside a giant wicker man.

I even wondered at one point if these effigies were really made of fabric and straw. They might have been real people, who had driven through the villages, been lured out of their cars and then gagged and covered in fabric with a crude felt tip pen face drawn on them.

That all sounds very far fetched I know, but you can't be too careful in the countryside.

So, here they are:

We also discovered that Gary is going to be performing live this Sunday. Yes, the Gary:

And in one of the towns we went through, we saw a man dressed as a Jubilee potato

I am so proud to be British right now.