St Austell is famous for its china clay so you might imagine the town councillors would have made overtures to Shanghai or Beijing. Perhaps they did and were rebuffed. You could understand that: Beijing has a population of around 21.5 million (and Nine Million Bicycles according to Katie Melua); we are small beer at 20,000.
Nevertheless we feel left out. There are 35 Cornish towns that are twinned with towns in Brittany, but not us. Oh no, we stand alone and defiant. And isolationist. No wonder we voted .... (no, I'm not going there)
Xian, the ancient capital of Chinese dynasties, is twinned with more than 30 towns including Edinburgh and Pau. But surely they have room for one more? I volunteer as ambassador! Give me a plane ticket and a china pot and I'll go and seal the deal.
Did you know that the town of Dull in Scotland is twinned with Boring, Oregon and Bland, New South Wales?
Dresden and Coventry are twinned; I get that. But Luton and Spandau?
In 2012 the UK's Wikipedia twin, aka the BBC, reported that some UK (actually English) towns were embarking on "un-twinning". Apparently Bishop's Stortford no longer felt close to Friedberg or Villiers-sur-Marne. Take that, Eurotrash! Wallingford in Oxfordshire complained that Luxeiul-les-Bains was not pulling its weight. Who did they complain to? Obviously, the European Municipalities and Regions - who else? Maybe St Austell could twin with the EMAR.
You'd imagine there is plenty of scope for political virtue signalling - in 1980 Dundee twinned with the West Bank town of Nablus and flew the PLO flag in City Hall
- and arrangements which are simply weird - Swindon and Walt Disney World.
In an effort to be positive, I researched places in the world that, like us, mine china clay, otherwise known as kaolin. And here's a truly weird thing: the aforementioned Wikipedia has a section entitled "is kaolin safe to eat?" What? You want to eat china clay? According to the text, it is "possibly safe when taken by mouth" but they note that it "can cause constipation and lung problems, particularly for children and the elderly". So exactly how safe is that? Any kids reading this, don't eat china clay! (or Grannies)
Whatever, what's going on with St Austell? Get out there and make friends, people!
Your brother in arms reminds you that China clay is used for top quality paper. He’s told you that, but you might have forgotten.
ReplyDeleteAs to twinning, Greenwich is twinned with Maribor in Slovenia, Reinickendorf in Germany, Tema in Ghana - and Durham. Why? Because we are true internationalists and in the miners’ strike we supported the miners in Co Durham. I bet you didn’t know that.