"Z" is for Zig-Zag on the Bridgewater

The good boat Zig-Zag. moored on the Bridgewater Canal between Moore and Daresbury. There are not many narrowboats with a motif like this one... Linked to ABC Wednesday where we finish off another 26 week round at "Z".

Update 6 Jan 2016, 1100 UTC: Chris Morley emailed me to say that:

It's an iconic 19th century advertising motif for a brand of French cigarette rolling papers, featuring a French North African regiment soldier

Captain Zig-Zag

The zouave soldier portrayed on the front of Zig-Zag products is colloquially known as the "Zig-Zag man". The choice of a member of this French North African regiment as a Zig-Zag icon originates from a folk story about an incident in the battle of Sevastopol. When the soldier's clay pipe was destroyed by a bullet, he attempted to roll his tobacco using a piece of paper torn from his bag of gunpowder.

^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zig-Zag_%28company%29}

^{Thanks Chris!}