We’re used to strange sights in north Oxfordshire. The first person I ever met in our small Cotswolds town was a lady who brandished a tin of homemade mackerel pâté at me. It was delicious, but the nature of her greeting gives you an idea of the kind of eccentricity that’s familiar in this part of the world. Yet despite the area’s high tolerance of the bizarre – hardly diminished by the presence of Jeremy Clarkson up the road – I’ve lately witnessed a series of events that have stood out as particularly unusual.

I recently took a train surrounded by dozens of confused Americans and their children carrying mounds of luggage bearing ‘VP Vance’ tags. (One unfortunate passenger tried to squeeze past them to use the lavatory and was told to wait until they’d alighted at the next stop.) They we

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