Sunday, August 03, 2008
Cwmbwrlathon
According to Wikipedia flash mobbing is when a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief time, then quickly disperse. It was a fairly shortlived trend about five years ago but nevertheless is a term than can be used to describe a supposed event that nearly happened in my Council ward this weekend.For those who do not know I represent the Cwmbwrla Ward on the City and County of Swansea. The western boundary of this ward is skirted by the A483 dual carriageway, which is interrupted by one of largest and most attractive roundabouts in Swansea, Cwmbwrla Roundabout (pictured). The volume of traffic using this roundabout is very large as you would expect with a major arterial route into the City.
I was a bit shocked therefore to have brought to my attention yesterday morning the existence of a Facebook group entitled 'Lets all pile on to CWMBWRLA ROUNDABOUT some saturday afternoon'. The group's description says: In an ideal world a few hundred of us all show up at the same time and start partying. We could have Acoustic sets from local bands and any other mayhem anyone comes up with, banners declaring nonsense being waved and the local 'authorities' not knowing what the f***'s going on, all of this is for absolutely no reason at all. We will film it on our phones and we will whack it on our hoax facebook page called 'Pearl necklace'.
The group has one event which was planned to take place yesterday at 1pm. It is called Cwmbwrlathon 08. They envisaged 'a quiet coming together of like minded jacks for cake, chat and an exchange of ideas on how we can make the world a more beautiful place, starting with cwmbwrla......bring a musical instrument or perhaps some five a side goals. The choice is yours.'
Needless to say the prospect of such a demonstration in the middle of busy traffic is not one that the authorities would relish. Comments on the Facebook page of this event take up the story:
'That was really funny no one went on the roundabout cause there was 2 community support officers walking around lol.'
'I was there Dan, prob was there was only about 20 others'
'me and my mate went on the roundabout but the coppers went on their radios so we got off then they came over to us n told us it's not safe but one of the coppers was hot really hot'
I got back into Swansea around 1pm and went straight to the roundabout to see what was happening. There were some groups of people standing around but there was also two or three police cars and a number of PCSOs patrolling the roundabout making sure that the event did not happen. They were apparently there for most of the afternoon.
I think that this is just as well. The last thing that we need is a group of people holding a party in the middle of a dual carriageway. It may sound fun to them but it could well lead to a serious accident. Let us hope that they do not attempt it again.
Comments:
<< Home
i think people turned up to inspect the ten foot holed in the bank by the side of roundabout by the side of pavement the one that wasnt cordend off for at least a week
# posted by 
: 5:59 PM
: 5:59 PM
dont worry bout people on the rounabout when there are ten foot deep holes next to pavements
# posted by : 6:07 PM
: 6:07 PM
Presumably this is the 10 foot hole that appeared as the result of somebody stealing the very expensive manhole cover that used to sit on top of it. You will be pleased to know that this was made safe within a few hours of it being brought to our atention pending the replacement of the manhole cover.
It might be a sign that your ward is ripe for some kind of lovely community event with live music... you could always look into a more suitable location and organisers for such a thing.
Post a Comment
<< Home
