This Side of the Pond

It’s not every day that a snail solves a centuries-old mystery. Thanks to a long-dead group of gastropods, we’ve now discovered that one of my county’s most famous landmarks both is and isn’t as old as we thought it was.

I’m referring in this somewhat confusing statement to a visual delight that I’ve introduced you to in this column before: the Cerne Abbas Giant. Carved into the hillside in Dorset, towering 180 feet over the nearby village, is what I’ve long believed to be an early example of what would happen if you left the kids alone for half an hour with an open box of chalk.

The giant is...