Wednesday 6 January 2016

"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.

Thanks Chris!






8 comments:

  1. how lovely, i would like to take a trip on it

    Have a nice abc-day / -week
    ♫ M e l ☺ d y ♫ <abc-e-team)

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  2. What a great sighting for the letter Z!

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  3. A zig-zaggy boat! What fun! Always enjoy your posts and would love to "pop up" to see Manchester and have a visit. Always great to meet fellow ABCWers! I think I may have gone through Manchester almost 20 years ago on a coach tour. We didn't stay there, though. Will let you know if I have some time to visit and see the city. I'll be traveling alone so it's easy to detour when you're on your own. Any dates you're unavailable?

    Leslie
    abcw team

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    Replies
    1. Great Leslie, I'd be happy to show you around! My 2016 dates are not fully formulated at the moment but am in Paris 11-16 March and am running a European radio conference (though that is in Manchester!) 9-12 Sept. Keep me informed with your travel plans and dates and we can work something out- how exciting!

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  4. It certainly does look old fashioned.

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