A spooky clown has been poking around Northampton, England. It feels like the almost perfect counterbalance to the likes of Phoenix Jones and other do-gooders. The thing is, though, that this clown doesn’t actually do anything except be spooky.

The editors of the Northampton paper want people to take a deep breath:

Sadly – bizarrely – an equally large number are offering up violence of the “If I see him I’ll deck him…” variety.

I really don’t understand that. I wonder what it is about an unexpected clown that is so difficult to cope with that it would provoke an outburst of uncontrolled physical agression? How do these people cope with Halloween, fancy dress parties or even fashion makeovers?

I’m sure most of it is just talk, but why do so many people think it is still ok to write in recorded, traceable, comments threats that they wouldn’t make in person for fear of being arrested?

On his Facebook site, Spot Northampton’s Clown, the clown has posted today: “Too much hate not enough love . No, i don’t have a knife on me!, thats just stupid rumours spread by stupid people. I’m also ‘not’ on twitter as it confuses the heck out of me.

“However, i might go for a jog around that pond in Abington park later as i’m really unfit… See you around! Beep Beep!”

As a defender of the right to be in public without cause, such as loitering or being a spooky clown, I wish him all the best.


Category: Newsroom

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7 Responses to Can’t Sleep, Clown’ll Eat Me

  1. dan d says:

    Will, sorry for posting off topic but we talked about fertility rates at Ordinary Times a couple weeks ago and I wanted to provide you with a couple of additional resources since you said you were going to write about the subject .

    The first is the Human fertility Database it has information on a number of different measures of fertility from a number of different countries; one interesting fact is that Swedish women born in 1905 averaged fewer children than any who came before or after them.

    The second is the CDC preliminary report on births for 2012; the only thing especially noteworthy is that the TFR for Mexicans is probably below replacement.

    • trumwill says:

      Dan, boy would this have been helpful last week! The post is written and will go up either later this week or next. I’ll definitely have use for the Mexico data. Thanks a bunch.

  2. dan d says:

    To clarify I was referring to Mexican Americans not Mexico (although I think the TFR in Mexico is also below 2.1). The report doesn’t break it down by subgroup but the overall Hispanic rate is 2.188 and the rate for Mexicans is usually below the total of all Hispanics.

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