Glastonbury Tor

Tag: Glastonbury Signwriters Guild

  • Planning permission granted for escalator on Glastonbury Tor

    Visitors will soon be able to ride to the top of Glastonbury Tor without suffering aching legs – a complaint known locally as “Glasto-calf”. This follows agreement by the planning committee this week to allow an escalator to be installed on the steepest slope – the final 100 metres of the tor.

    The need for some form of automated transport has become an increasingly important issue as Glastonbury Tor has grown by 30 metres over the last decade.

    The cost of the escalator will be funded partly by a grant from the Glastonbury Signwriters Guild, with the remainder recouped from advertising that will be displayed to visitors as they ascend and descend the tor in style.

    As might be expected, news of the escalator has divided the community, with some people claiming that it is a wonder of modern science, while others claim that it discriminates against owners of larger dogs whose owners are not able to carry them for such a long escalator journey. Owners of small dogs are of course rejoicing in the fact that their dogs will be able to enjoy the view from the top of Glastonbury Tor, as their owners will have no trouble supporting their weight on the long escalator ride.

    The local developers responsible for the escalator proposal are very relieved as this was the second planning application. It follows the refusal of the first proposal that included a moving walkway that would have carried visitors all the way from the middle of Glastonbury town to the base of the tor. Visitors would then have switched to the escalator for the final stage of their journey. This was deemed too disruptive as the path of the moving walkway crosses several major roads that would have needed to have been rerouted.

  • Glastonbury twin town triangulation confounds Council B

    Glastonbury town council A revealed today that it is to twin its half of the town with Twinchester, a decision that has disappointed town council B, whose massive investment in cheese cubes might now seem over-ambitious.

    Twinchester is an off-the-peg town created for administrative purposes by an accountancy firm in Kent. Many people are critical of the standard town twinning system but become absolutely ballistic when their councils become involved in such purely administrative twinning ventures, because they fear the system is so open to abuse.

    Several council members from Glastonbury town council A enjoyed the benefits of the Twinchester twinning arrangement at a trade-relations-building cocktail party today. Reports, as yet unconfirmed, indicate that the entire council stock of Grenadine has been consumed.

    Glastonbury Signwriters Guild spokesman Master Craftsman Cyrus Chuldfield was quick to comment; “Members of the signwriters guild have so far repainted half of the signs around the town with the words Glastonbury twinned with Glastonbury. Now, just days later we have to repaint them again saying Glastonbury twinned with Glastonbury and partially twinned with Twinchester for administrative purposes. I shouldn’t be complaining because it keeps our guild members employed, but we are starting to worry that visitors to the town are going to be confused by the small typeface.”

  • Keep off the grass signs infuriate visitors and Glastonbury Signwriters Guild

    The sudden appearance of Keep Off The Grass signs all over Glastonbury Tor has caused an outcry.  But some people are not just complaining about the reduction in picnic space – a pressure group from the Glastonbury Signwriters Guild has also been fighting their cause.

    Spokesman Master Craftsman Cyrus Chuldfield announced today; “our complaint isn’t so much about having to keep off the grass. Members of the guild are working round the clock at the moment repainting the town’s signs to read Glastonbury twinned with Glastonbury so we’re not getting out much. The problem we have is that these new signs were made by the National Trust outside of Glastonbury. For hundreds of years the local bylaws have said you need a signwriting license to make and sell signs in Glastonbury. Signwriting license application forms are available at the reception desk at Glastonbury town council B”.

    But Uther Henge, the chief mystical consultant for the National Trust stationed permanently at their gift shop at Glastonbury Tor was keen to defend the Trust; “This was just the standard shipment of a thousand hand-painted signs that every National Trust property receives each year from head office. Over the weekend we managed to put up all five hundred Keep Off The Grass signs, but we still have to put up three hundred Private – Keep Out signs, and fifty Form An Orderly Queue signs. The Glastonbury Signwriters Guild need to realise that if we sourced all of our signs locally we would have to charge over £100 per person for admission to the Tor. We still get guild members to paint many of our signs, so I think it’s a bit rich them complaining. For example, last week we ordered a hundred locally hand painted signs saying Wipe Your Feet You Urchin”.

  • £70m saved as Glastonbury twins with itself

    Following the discovery of a loophole in the European twin town system, the Lord Mayor of Glastonbury The Rt Hon Lawrence McKnight announced today that plans to twin Glastonbury with Langenlonsheim in Germany have been scrapped, and instead the town will twin with itself.

    At a press conference this morning on the edge of the A39 into Glastonbury the Lord Mayor unveiled the new sign that now says Glastonbury twinned with Glastonbury, much to the delight of the Glastonbury Signwriters Guild whose members have been tasked with repainting all of the signs around the town.

    The Lord Mayor was keen to draw attention to the huge savings the council will make over the next few years; “The cost of flying the whole town council for pleasure trips at public expense to Germany every three months was going to be crippling. We will still be making visits to our sister town but we have achieved this in a very creative way, by dividing the town council in two and then inviting each other over for cheese and wine parties, where we strengthen trade and community links.”

    In other news, the Somerset Cheese Federation announced the biggest order in their history from Glastonbury town council B today, for £1m of ready-cut cheese cubes, and Glastonbury Toothpick and Pineapple Chunks PLC saw a 30% boost in share value as trading started on the London Stock Exchange.