The famous geoglyph "The Giant of Cerne Ebbas", located on a hillside near the village of the same name in Dorset in the south of England, was turned into a "sportsman" by pranksters in honor of the Wimbledon tournament that started in early July. But not everyone was delighted with such a trick.
According to The Daily Mail, the bookmaker Paddy Power worked on the cultural monument belonging to the National Fund of Great Britain, turning his club into a tennis racket, as well as adding a ball on top and leaving his initials.
The National Foundation has already condemned this publicity stunt, noting that, despite the general love for tennis, they are against the "disfigurement" of the monument, to which such procedures can cause irreparable damage. Whether it is planned to somehow punish the vandal entrepreneurs is not specified.
Recall that we are talking about a geoglyph 55 meters high. The origin and age of the pattern formed by shallow trenches in the ground are unknown. The first mention of the figure appeared in the middle of the 17th century. What the giant symbolizes is also not completely clear. Some researchers suggest that these are allusions to ancient Hercules, others - that this is some kind of local deity of fertility. There is also a version that this is a caricature of a certain politician of the 17th century.
The giant, among other nicknames, is also known as "Britain's most famous phallus," and one commentator once noted that postcards depicting the naked giant were the only obscene photographs that could be sent through the England Post. By the way, just a month ago, other pranksters "brought out" the name of the current British Prime Minister, Teresa May, right on the phallus. Presumably it was an allusion to the old Conservative slogan "Stand for Britain".