As the curator of an office desk biscuit wrapping museum, how pleased was I by Charlie Brooker’s latest Guardian piece and the comments it brought in? (Rhetorical question. The answer is “inordinately.”)

Charlie Brooker was saying that the Lapland Museum that opened and closed recently was his kind of visitor attraction, unlike the slick delights of Disneyland or Alton Towers.

“Santa’s gone home. Santa’s fucking dead.” As theme park slogans go, it’s a winner.

That wasn’t the official slogan. The staff were reducing to yelling it at reporters. This attraction seems to have been a muddy field with a billboard, a couple of Christmas lights and a four hour queue to spend another £10 (on top of the £25 admission) to get your picture taken with Santa.

Charlie Brooker runs with the idea of crap attractions, like the Norfolk’s Collector’s World:

It consisted of room upon room of bizarre, apparently unrelated artefacts. There was a “Pink Room” dedicated to Barbara Cartland, a telephone museum, a collection of antique cars, some sort of hideous-sounding “gynaecological chair”, and best of all, a hall filled solely with memorabilia relating to the actor Liza Goddard, which apparently included pullovers and a mug she’d once drunk out of. Exhilarating and frightening in equal measure, I’d imagine, especially if you’re Liza Goddard yourself.

The commenters could put this half-hearted attempt to create a really rubbish day-out in the shade though.
Step forward:

• Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick: “home of the first pencil!”
• Noel Edmonds theme park, called Crinkly Bottom
• Barometer world
• Prairie Dog Town, Kansas
• Cheeseworld in Southern Australia
• Diggerland, “basically a glorified pit with mini JCBs you can play on, and big JCBs you can look at.”
• Musée du Jambon in La Roche en Ardenne. (A ham museum)
• ‘The Mosquito Museum in Sweden
• The Bakelite Museum in Somerset
• The Penis Museum in Iceland
• The Drinking Water Museum
• The Museum of Salt and Pepper Shakers, Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

Unsurprisingly, the Creation Museum gets quite a few mentions. For being rubbish, quite apart from its ludicrous content. Another more appealing comedy Christian theme park was visited by Babykangaroo

This is my favourite of all hilariously bad theme parks: Tierra Santa in Buenos Aires
http://www.tierrasanta-bsas.com.ar/galeria.html
A 10-metre high Jesus is resurrected every half hour and you get to view a waxwork show of the story of “Creation” involving mechanical animals. The rest of the time you hang around “Jerusalem” waiting for Jesus to do that thing again, whilst planes fly scarily low over head as it’s right next to the airport.
Bloody brilliant. I highly recommend a visit.

Obviously, if the word kitsch didn’t exist, something like it would have to be invented just to describe this single attraction.

I don’t know why, but the museum visited by kbfrome appeals to me the most:

….I defy anyone to better The Pilchard Experience, the museum about pilchards in Cornwall somewhere. Three of the shittest hours of my life. And my parents were entranced by every aspect of it

(Don’t book your visit, though. Distressingly, the Pilchard Experience is no more. It’s closed. I googled it. Although Cornwall seems to have plenty of other pilchard-themed attractions)

jemimapiddledick said:

I always fancied a visit to McLeod Cuckoo Land. A theme park based on the 70´s horse riding cowboy law enforcer. Alas, it was just a VIZ creation.
Shame.