Miles Kington: Visit the Museum of Clichés, but don't mind the bargepoles

Every museum in the country is getting ready to attract crowds when the next Bank Holiday looms and the British Cliché Museum is no exception, already looking as bright as a button, and all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, to name only two of the thousands of clichés housed here.

This friendly little spot is not just a collection of all the objects connected with British clichés (on display you will find more bargepoles, doorposts, thick planks, new brooms, sick parrots etc than you could shake a stick at) but it is actively engaged in research and testing of clichés old and new.

"Oh, yes, there is hardly a cliché that we have not take a butcher's at," says Jack Robinson, the new director of the British Cliché Museum. (All directors of the museum, as soon as they are appointed, are traditionally renamed Jack Robinson or Solomon Grundy.) "You see, most people accept the working of the average cliché without thinking about it. Put the cart before the horse, they say, or take a horse to water, although none of them has ever handled a cart or a horse. Here is the one place in Britain they can come and see clichés demonstrated and tested, to destruction if necessary."

If you do test a cliché to destruction, does that mean that people discard it?

"Good Lord, no!" says Jack Robinson. "One of the first things we ever did here was to establish that leaving a sinking ship was a sensible thing to do, not a cowardly one, yet still to this day people are called rats for leaving a sinking ship. Clever old rats, I say. But no one else does."

He pauses as we pass an open office where a man sits at a desk, shuffling paper around.

"How're you feeling, doctor?," cries Robinson.

The doctor gives us a beatific smile.

"Great," he says. "Awesome. Marvellous ..."

"Good, good," says Robinson, and adds to me, more softly, "We're just seeing if he likes a taste of his own medicine. What we didn't know is that he prescribed people a lot of morphine and Viagra, so he's really enjoying himself. We'll have to do some more tests with doctors who dole out mostly cough medicine and flu jabs. Now here ..."

And here is an open bit of ground with some big bushes growing close together. They look quite tough.

"Cherie Blair was described the other day as looking as if she had been dragged through a hedge backwards. It's an old cliché. But is it true? On Bank Holiday Monday we've got a Cherie Blair lookalike coming along who's agreed to be dragged through it backwards, and then forwards, to see if there's any difference.

"Mark you, the rate at which hedges are being grubbed up in this country, we will soon have to explain to people what a hedge is. Already we have to explain about taking coals to Newcastle, because people don't remember any more that Newcastle was in a coal-producing area. Some of them don't know what coal is. They associate the word with football because of all the footballers called Cole, like Ashley Cole and Joe Cole. A young boy said to me the other day, 'Don't you mean taking Coles to Chelsea'?"

As I end my visit, I see a man preparing an enormous cheese on a table. What is he up to?

"Ah, he's mounting our cheese-paring demonstration. People talk about cheese-paring as if it is being stingy and mean, but in fact it's all about husbandry and economy. You get a lot more out of a cheese if you pare it properly. It's explained in our new recipe book."

The British Cliché Museum has published a recipe book?

"It certainly has! It has such dishes in it as Humble Pie, A Pretty Kettle of Fish, Too Many Cooks Broth, Sauce for the Goose and Gander, Revenge..."

Revenge? What kind of dish is Revenge?

"I'm not sure," admits Jack Robinson, "All I know is that it's best served cold..."

The British Cliché Museum, open daily 9-5pm. Off the M25, follow your nose, can't miss it, as the crow flies, make a bee-line for it...