Roundabout way to rule world

WHAT have the British given the world? Fish and chips. Parliament. Simon Cowell. And . . . roundabouts.

The world’s first roundabout appeared in Letchworth, Herts, in 1909. This week, the Economist magazine has published a tribute to this hitherto overlooked British export — ‘the triumph of co-operation over confrontation’. Today it’s estimated more than 60,000 have been built around the world.

Yet, amazingly, the first roundabout did not appear in America until 1990. In the U.S. you turn right onto a roundabout, whereas we go left. Which is why the word for roundabout in Swahili — spoken in Britain’s former colonies in Africa — is ‘kipilefti’ or ‘keep left’.