Oddest Museum Opening Ever?

HERE'S an odd email we received plugging an event at Ripon market place. The event is and we quote, the re-enactment of ' the savage punishment of a Victorian convict.'

Ouch. Sounds a bit...extreme, especially when the email subject header is 'Public whipping - great entertainment for the family.'

What next? How about: 'Join us as we recreate a brutal hanging to celebrate the arrival of a new Tesco convenience store'.

'It will be fun and educational for all the family,' says the PR, probably in the same way Jeremy Kyle is ideal viewing for impressionable eight-year-olds.

It's all to plug a new exhibition at the Courthouse Museum on Minster Road. Have they not heard of champagne and canapes?

What next? How about: 'Join us as we recreate a brutal hanging to celebrate the arrival of a new Tesco convenience store'.

Or: 'Get involved in a good old-fashioned stoning of an adulteress female as we unveil a new multi-storey car park.'

The re-enactment is keen to stick to the orders traditionally issued by Ripon magistrates 'that those sentenced should be publickly whipt at the Market Cross in Ripon on Thursday between the hours of eleven and Twelve of the Clock... until their back be bloody.'

I bet the under-4s can't wait for that.

Perhaps given that public flogging still actually exists in some less progressive societies, they could have thought of a slightly less ridiculous PR stunt.

Own goal? We think so. Maybe a night in the stocks will sort them out.