It didn’t occur to me that a giant balloon that looked like the moon would be taken to heart and soon become part of the Bridgwater Community. Ha, Lunacy!

But it did.

Luke Jerram devised a giant inflatable moon. Exact and precise. And he got Camerons balloons (who he lived next door to) to make it for him. Then he put it in Bridgwater docks. And people loved it. In fact, 7,000 people turned up on the Thursday night alone to see its nightglow and attached markets.

What it shows to me is that Bridgwater is far from the cultural wilderness of legend and  in fact appreciates stuff.

Continue reading “The Balloon’s a Moon”

This month the Tory Party are having their leadership election, and it could be a game changer. Both surviving candidates are from the right wing of their party and that suggests that they believe the place to win elections these days in our not terribly fair first past the post voting system is somewhere right of centre. But how far? What ever happened to the centre ground being the place where you had to be in it to win it? What happened to ‘One Nation’?

Continue reading “One Nation Under a Groove”

One of my favourite scenes in movie history is in Zulu where the brave Welsh defenders of Rourke’s Drift face off the Zulu hordes and sing ‘Men of Harlech’ in defiance. Then the Zulus line up on a hill top and sing a song of tribute to ‘brave warriors’. On the downside it probably didn’t happen.

Whilst versions of ‘Men of Harlech’ had been going around since the mid Victorian days and even a lyric sheet similar to the one sang by Ivor Emanuel in the film ‘could’ possibly have been on the lips of the largely Welsh regiment, for sure the Zulu song was definitely right out. The brilliant Yorkshire composer John Barry had basically reused one of his old guitar based instrumental pieces from his ‘John Barry 7’ days , a jazzy beat combo gigging around the clubs and coffee bars of Leeds and York, and called it ‘Zulu Stomp’ . Continue reading “Sing Your Troubles Away”

I always wondered why Scotland was dead keen on independence and yet Wales much less so. Maybe it was because the Scots had North Sea oil, although by a strange angle of the border as it met the sea, England seemed to grab most of it. But all this time Wales had something much more valuable, more popular and certainly far tastier. Welsh Cakes. And at Bridgwater fair this week -as every year – people were queueing round the block for them. If only the Welsh had realised the economy goldmine they had on their griddles! Continue reading “Never Forget Your Welsh Cakes”

I made good time all the way from Scotland. 8 hours including breaks. Get to Bridgwater, standstill. Stuck in traffic, depot closed. Why is Bridgwater so very bad for gridlock? Well, we’re the victims of our own history. It’s the medieval shape of the town centre that’s still there today and every bit of modern transport technology has simply been added on and within years has been overtaken by development to render it obsolete.

Continue reading “Knock It Down and Start Again”