Hay-on-Wye is the place of legend, or so it would have us believe. A place for writers and writings, with its annual book festival, mysteriously situated in Powys, Wales but with a postal address in Herefordshire, England (no bull – geddit?).
So have a guess which other mysterious place – somewhere in the world, perhaps at the other end of the rainbow – is ‘twinned’ with Hay? (No googling just yet, p-lease.) Then, if you get it right, you might wonder Wye!
Boadicea's Chariot 
I am going for Topeka, capital of, Kansas, that being the home state of Dorothy and Toto, who longed to go over the rainbow to the land of Oz. Wye twin with Hay? Because they are all Hayseeds in Kansas.
Please sir, oo, oo, me please, can I have a go? (hand shoots up quickly)
I haven’t googled, honest, but its twin is in the news today! Its as far away as you can get but in reality is more like an important crossroads of trade and culture. A big VW car has just gained a foothold there!
Chibougamau (PQ) was a also a strong finalist for twinning honors.
ok, OK! Clever lot! Timbukyu it is, but wye?
What is really so sad is that the aspirational bunch of tossers that hang round the self important inflated egotists that make up the ‘festival’ would rather not go into Wales.
As far as they are concerned, Herefordshire is so much more ‘charming’ than Powys. Gloucestershire would have been far more ‘aspirational’ but there are limits to even geography!
It is a quite OK sort of place the rest of the year, especially for lunch, but a bit PC Guardian ridden. But a much better pub in Grosmont to the south for dinner. Spent a lot of time round there, not, I hasten to add, in Hay itself with all the poseurs, but more with the farming racing fraternity who all use Chepstow as their local training race course preparatory for Cheltenham. A lot happens in that area outside the covers of a few books!
Is it actually true that Hay is twinned with Timbuctu? Bloody funny since all the Tauregs have invaded, the Hay mob should just love them, just what the PC ordered! Perhaps they should have a few over, no visas required, and liven up their festival, riding up and down beheading people should add a certain je ne sais quoi to their usual mutual orifice licking.
Well done janus, I shall be amused all day at this one.
Everybody knows that twinning is just another name for councillors’ junkets, so why not choose a partner as remote from Hay as possible? But, CO, as you say, sauce for geese and ganders like, they might get a few Tuaregs camping with their camels one day.
Janus, Mrs. O. Hay-on-Wye (generally indeterminate regarding County, Country and gender) is twinned with Redu (in Belgium), and also Timbuktu (in Africa). These two having similar endings make double U . Having made a super start, Hay is now looking to twin with any town whose name ends with Y and then a town with a name ending in ending in E (that’s WYE), it’s a literary thing.
Oh! and Timbukyu to yu tu.
UUM, so it is alright to make a play on the Welsh language but have a postal address in England?
As I said, bunch of tossers!
I suppose any genuine locals fled years ago! (From Hay that is!) {I wonder if they thought the literary crowd akin to a Taureg invasion?}
When I think about it I don’t even know anyone with an elderly relative that has ever moved into Hay, they all went elsewhere in the area when they wanted more urban services.
Says it all!
“Timbuktu – also spelt as Tombouctou – is already twinned with a Chemnitz in Germany, Saintes in France, Marrakech in Morocco, Kairouan in Tunisia, and Tempe in Arizona, USA.”
Really?
Sipu: Sextupleted maybe?
The gravy train clearly runs frequently at the world’s end.
Sipu – Direct from my very own primary school playground memories of fifty years ago.
Once on holiday down in France,
Tim and I met three girls at a dance.
They were three and we were two,
so I bucked one and Tim bucked two
We had no idea. 🙂
OZ
OZ, you have no idea how hard it was to resist posting that little poem. I remember I first heard it in about 1971, but it is still a goodie.
😀
OZ