Fun Aspects of Twinning
Fun Aspects of Twinning This week the BBC One Show formalised a twinning between the show and the Somerset town of Frome. The programme on Friday showed the team arriving by helicopter, giving a short guided tour of Frome and drumming up support among the residents for the project, culminating in the signing of a "Charter" by the Mayor Cllr Damon Hooton and team members.</p>
<p> The project was started the by the One Show team who asked their viewers to nominate their town as a "twin" to the show. Among the very many nominations was one from a Frome business woman Mandie Stone froms a store called "Love Arts" on Catherine Hill who sent in a poem describing the charms of Frome. On the "signing" day the One Show dedicated a large part of their programme to the days events with performances from the youth band, fire brigade and majorettes and ending with a fireworks display.</p>
<p> Much as I like Frome (my son lives there so I know it well), one must ask, is it a serious twinning event, or a programme gimmick for the BBC with some additional publicity for the town which had already received a fair amount of publicity the same week due to one of their sons, Jenson Button, winning the 2009 F1 Grand Prix series? I could also ask, what benefits do the two participants bring to each other in the way of cultural exchanges etc? Perhaps through Fromes offical twinning links with Germany, France and now Poland there might perhaps be some exchanges of the broadcasting companies of the four countries! However, we can take these things too seriously, there can be a lot of fun gained from twinning activities as members of all the twinning associations around the country will gladly tell you.</p>
<p> There is even a fictitious twinning between Wincanton and Ankh-Morpork from the fictional land of Discworld created by Terry Pratchett, one of the stories used the concept of the twinning of Ankh-Morpork with Wincanton as the basis for the tale, but it captured the imagination of the town of Wincanton so much that they agreed to officially recognise the "twinning" and even produced an council sponsored twinning sign for the town entrance, further more, two roads on a new development have been named "Peach Pie Street" and "Treacle Mine Road" after street names in the novels and houses on these streets were sold before they were even built such was the novelty and interest among the buyers.</p>
<p> The other new idea running at the moment is Disney Worlds search within the UK for its first official "Twin Town". The winning town, village or city will be granted official "Walt Disney World Twinned Town" status with a Disney Party in January to celebrate its success. The winning nominee will jet off to Walt Disney World in Florida with their family and a maximum of four other people for the official "Twinning" ceremony presided over by the mayor of Disney's Magic Kingdom. It seems this could be a good idea for somewhere such as Blackpool Pleasure Beach or a similar holiday area or a Theme Park who could definitely gain some benefits from such a "twinning" and each take their themes and charms to each other and benefit those citizens who would not have the chance to fly from UK to Florida or vise versa.</p>
<p> There are very many other twinning initiatives in existence, ie ships, planes, railway locomotives are sometimes twinned with specific places, and many professions "twin" with their equivalents in other countries, often with a third world country which can bring positive help and encouragement to a developing society.</p>
<p> Another twinning initiative which makes some sense is illustrated by the Leighton Buzzard Light Railway in Bedfordshire, a preserved industrial narrow gauge railway who are twinned with Froissy-Cappy-Dompierre Railway in France and with Indian Railways, many of which are narrow gauge and there are sometimes exchanges of locomotives, stock and personnel. </p>
<p>There are many other such groups twinned together which can bring real benefits to each other. Anyway, how seriously should we view these versions of twinning? They may have serious objectives, be a bit of fun, be fictitious or be there for the publicity. At a time when the twinning movement is suffering from lack of interest from the newer generations, lack of support from government and councils, due in part to the recession or for political reasons what is wrong with a little old fashioned fun? </p>
<p>After all, those dedicated stalwarts running the countries formal and traditional town twinning associations put in an enormous amount of effort into organizing and planning their activities in an attempt to bring an understanding of different cultures, language etc into the lives of their communities and they deserve to have a laugh or two, even if it appears on the to the layman to be ridiculing the twinning movement</p>
<p>. If you can't laugh at yourselves, then who the hell can you laugh at?</p>
<p> Alan Wicks </p>