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11 November 2020

This England: With this Bing I thee wed

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare's "Richard II", refers to the whole of Britain – has run in the NS since 1934.   

By New Statesman

Mr and Mrs White-Christmas, 20-year-olds Tilly and Kieran, who met aged 12 at school in Bridport, married on Tuesday at the Roman Baths, watched by close family and friends.

Mrs White-Christmas said: “It took us time to twig that our surnames came together as White-Christmas. We first realised at our secondary school prom when our friend uploaded pictures to social media using the hashtag #WhiteChristmas.”

Dorset Echo (Catherine Dyer)

Earned his stripes

“Baffle the Badger who crashed through Superdrug gets special plaque in Northampton shopping centre.”

Headline in the Northampton Chronicle & Echo
(Janet Mansfield)

[see also: This England: Fast and loose]

Got the hump

A family was left with £600 of damage to their car after a 75-stone camel sat on the bonnet at a safari park.

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Annie Andrews, 40, and her partner took their kids to Knowsley Safari Park, on Merseyside, to celebrate son Callum’s first birthday.

They opted to avoid the monkey enclosure at the drive-thru park for fear the inquisitive, and rather cheeky, animals would destroy their Vauxhall Insignia. But they were shocked when their vehicle came under threat from a pair of two-humped Bactrian camels having a row.

Manchester Evening News (Catherine Coales)

[see also: This England: If a tree falls]

A self-made man

Viscount Linley, furniture designer and honorary chair, Christie’s, 59.

From birthdays in the Independent (David Gibard)

 

Each printed entry receives a £5 book token. Entries to comp@newstatesman.co.uk or on a postcard to This England.

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This article appears in the 11 Nov 2020 issue of the New Statesman, America after Trump