Twinning.

Rreading in the parish magazine about the latest activities of the twinning committee got me to thinking about how we could make the concept of twinning more popular. Personally, I am all in favour of developing better international relations by communities twinning but I wonder if our current twinning partners are the best we can get for making twinning a really popular activity to engage the people of Silverton. After all, I cant see the attraction of one rather damp and often chilly Devon village being twinned with an equally damp and chilly village in Brittany. I think we should go for a rather more radical alternative.

Given that this is the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution, I think that we should go for a twinning arrangement with a similar sized community on that island, preferably on the coast. I bet that the thought of having a couple of weeks in Cuba, even if you had to spend some time being lectured on the merits of the local sugar plantation cooperative would have people flooding to join the twinning committee. Then of course the Cubans would come over here and we could exchange gifts, they could bring rum and Havana cigars and we could present them with a selection of Mike Howe's pies and a barrel of Exe Valley DOBS, thus would the cause of international understanding be advanced.

Perhaps the idea of a Cuba twinning link might prove a bit too radical for some however, so perhaps we could think of somewhere in Spain, or Greece, or Turkey, or anywhere where its warm for longer than its cold. Then again, given recent events, we could go for somewhere in Mongolia where the inhabitants could come and show us the correct way to erect a Yurt. That seems to be a skill we might all soon need if the current attempts to solve the global economic crisis come to nothing.