h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Glenelgs, Scotland, Earth is being twinned with Glenelgs on Mars. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-19976650

I wonder if there's a Cleethorpes on Titan. Just imagine the view

I love this story, especially about the Mars Rover travelling to that site.

I can imagine its first contact with Martians at Glenelg:

"Yu'll have had yer tea?"

Och aye

was it you what made circles in our crops?

Glen Elg is stunning - I've taken the ferry there that goes over the sea to Skye

I dare not go there. I'm afraid I might be stuck in a whisky bar

I must admit I've never really seen the point of twinning. My home town of Sandown has a sign saying it is twinned with Tonnay-Charente in France and St Pete Beach in Florida.

If school children were encouraged to become pen pals with the schools they were twinned with, or at least are told vaguely something about the place that is twinned with, it might be worthwhile. But it does seem to be a tick-box exercise. Town councils think 'let's get twinned, okay we're twinned - we don't need to think about that any more, what shall we do next?'
A microscopic village in Rutland is twinned with Paris, so why not twin with Mars? It's about as much use as twinning with a real place. At least the chances of anything coming from Mars are only a million to one.

<BB< - Currently looking for a h2g2 researcher to be Twinned with.

I'm surprised you say that, BB.

My experience of twinning has always been very different. As a youngster in England I did two or three exchanges each way, visiting French girls and them coming to stay with me. It showed us the big gap between the French you learn at school and French as it is spoken, and helped us to learn to bridge the gap. During the visits to France, the cultural sightseeing tours may have been over our heads, but we got to know each other's mentalities and that was a valuable and useful lesson for us pubescent teens.

Ah but that was in the 60s, you may say. These days people don't have time for that. But: I now live in a town where we have thriving twinning societies with a French and a Hungarian town. The French one has been going for over 40 years. There are frequent exchanges between musical and sports groups, schools, and dignitaries. Our town Fest, held in early September, always includes a stall run by the twinning society, serving wine and cheese, and a performance by a Hungarian brass band or folk-dancing group, There are regular reports in the local paper about what is going on in the twin towns.

Efforts to start up a twinning with any British town, or even on a school level, have always been thwarted by the reluctance of the British to participate, despite many attempts and a real keenness from the German side.

Anyway - this is GB's journal, so I'll shut up now....

The Rutland/Paris story: A47232650

My favourite is Wincanton, Somerset, famous for its racecourse, dairies, haulage, and the fact that it's twinned with Ankh-Morpork from Discworld:

http://photos.travellerspoint.com/172282/IMG_7360.jpg

My local towns are twinned with German places and we have regular cultural exchanges, as TC says. These are reported on in the local rag and everyone seems to enjoy them. I've been to a concert where musicians from our twin town came over and merged with the local orchestra and choir, put on quite a do they did

Love it! Do they serve rat onastick at their village fetes? And I gues that DEATH is a regular visitor to many places.

http://www.thisisgrimsby.co.uk/Twin-towns-rejoice-operatic-spectacular/story-11544162-detail/story.html

At school in Sandown, Isle of Wight I was given the opportunity to write letters to potential pen friends - in Sandown, New Hampshire, USA. We sent over sticks of Sandown rock and got colourful Hampshire 'fall' leaves, that sort of thing, photographs of the towns over the last hundred years, items which summarised the two towns. I still exchange Christmas cards with my pen pal, and met her a few years ago. I don't know whether the schools still do that, but I'd like to think so. That was done independent of the Twinning thing as the town in America that Sandown's twinned with is St Pete's in Florida, not Sandown New Hampshire.

But I am amused that Dull, Perthshire. Scotland is twinned with Boring, Oregan (USA)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-18577780

<BB<

oooh, the quote from post one is Quote of the Day!