No, really. Bestival Festival, which holds a fancy dress theme each year, has bowed to pressure from thousands of nervous ticket holders and binned its planned clown theme for fear of upsetting all the Coulrophobics among them. Yes, there really is a term for it, blame Stephen King.

Organiser Rob Da Bank told the BBC, "We have had so many people with clown phobias contact us, I am worried everyone might end up hiding in the woods." While this is surely a big part of Bestival, the combination of clowns, alcohol, music and, er, other stuff would probably cause a panic of vast proportions. Best they stick to something a bit safer, like en masse Freddy Krueger.