Who's this Charles Spencer treading on my turf? So I would humbly ask the Earl to come up with a byline of his own. If he doesn't, I might just change my name by deed poll to Earl Spencer. It has a nice louche touch of the jazz-band leader about it. Gruesome but strangely gripping odditorium In one of his addictive diaries, Alan Bennett describes his anxiety while engaged in the innocent pursuit of blackberrying, haunted by the fear that a child might be murdered or molested in the area and that he would become a police suspect. I experienced similar paranoia as I queued up outside Ripley's Believe It or Not! near Piccadilly Circus. It was half-term, many families were waiting patiently for admission, and I spotted one or two parents eyeing me with palpable suspicion - a solitary, middle-aged man in a suit carrying God knows what in his briefcase visiting an attraction clearly intended for families. But I have been intrigued by this "odditorium" offering "700 astounding exhibits over five floors" since it opened a few years ago and had a hunch that it would appeal to my love of the bizarre and grotesque. So I toughed out the suspicious glances, paid a whopping £28.90 for a single ticket and took a lift to the top of the building, where the exhibition starts. What a disconcerting phantasmagoria it proves. Robert Ripley (1890-1949) was an American cartoonist, explorer, adventurer and collector who travelled the world in search of the unexpected. He illustrated his finds in newspaper strips, made broadcasts about them on radio and TV, and exhibited them in tourist attractions. London's Believe It or Not! is apparently the biggest Ripley's collection in the world and in my view is far more fun than the deadly Madame Tussauds. Here, you will find stuffed freaks of nature, such as a two-headed lamb and Siamese-twin piglets, pictures painted by a horse that are vastly superior to Tracey Emin's, and photographs and waxworks of circus attractions including the ugliest woman in the world (who apparently had a delightfully sweet nature), the tallest man, and a loony who bored a hole in his head and placed a candle in it to conduct guided tours by night of his home town. It's extraordinarily gripping and, I suppose, somewhat reprehensible entertainment. A display of instruments of torture is especially harrowing and youngsters are invited to pull the switch on an electric chair in which a manikin judders horribly and emits smoke. Meanwhile, the grand climax is a display of shrunken heads, accompanied by a graphic account of the bloodthirsty tribal rites that attend their making. But there is no doubt that this stylishly presented display grabs attention, and children have always had a voracious appetite for the macabre. I left the place echoing Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."