Frome

“I was trapped here for 5 months, as i was lured in by that bright sign. There was then a bright light and Carlo declared hous arrest”

~ Oscer Walddd

“Here's moi farrmme. We got thee couws, and thee sheep. Want sum cheduuur? Want sum 'ohm brew! Me n my wyfe made it yarselfs.”

~ A Frome farmer trying to talk to a tourist

The River Frome from the Library Mount

Frome (pronounced Frome and not, as it is usually pronounced by strangers, Frome) is the cultural and historic capital of Somerset and the former Imperial city of the Froman Empire (fl 900-1820AD) The current population is approx. 28,000, including several thousand illegal immigrants from the North.

Frome is proud of its long history and still operates on local time, as a result of which all clocks are required by law to be 8 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time.

Early History

Founded, and almost immediately losted (owing to the Great East Wiltshire fog) in about 700 AD by St. Augustine of Trowbridge, Frome was lost in the Selwood Forest for approximately 900 years, during which time almost nothing happened except the growth of the Froman Empire. The Empire grew in near total obscurity except for a brief period during which it was invaded by King Alfred of Wessex on his way to defeat the Norsemen at Ethandun or, as some people spell it, Scunthorpe. The invasion ended after about fifteen minutes when his army emerged on the other side. On the way back they took a side turning to follow some military groupies, and missed it entirely. By 1600 AD the Empire had expanded to include the towns of Nunney, Rode, Chantry, Whatley, Tytherington and, owing to a navigational error, Martha's Vineyard. Bounded on the right by the Mells River and on the left by the Great Chasm of Shepton Mallet, (or, technically, the rest of Massachusetts) the Empire was isolated until the early 1630s, when earthquakes closed the Chasm and the Great Mells Bridge was constructed, thus joining the West of England to the barbarians to the right and starting the trade in second homes for Londoners which persists to the present day.

The current descendants of the Imperial Family still live in the area but, owing to the Great Cultural Revolution of 1792, have changed their surname, first from Froman to Foreman and then to Yeoman.

During the English Civil Wars the Froman Empire sided with whichever side was currently pointing guns at them. Growing tired of this, they joined the Clubmen. This was an organisation that went about forcing opposing armies to stand a round of drinks in the Conservative Club. This ended the Civil Wars, as they quickly became the Drunk and Disorderly Wars. Oliver Cromwell is believed to have made a State Visit to the Froman Empire but rode right through by mistake and ended up in Taunton. This resulted in the Bloody Assizes. Purists may object on the basis that there was a gap of several decades, but things happen rather slowly in parts of Somerset due to many people having a shortage of grandparents.

Frome Giant

They used to have a very obscene hill figure of a giant, like the Cerne Abbas Giant, crudely spraypainted onto the side of an old abandoned telephone box, made in 1552 AD. It was basically a copy of the giant but it's fella was even larger! And this one did have a sexy stick figure present. It was destroyed by skinheads in 1553 AD, only one year after it made its way onto an old AA box. But in 2007, it was restored by David Dickinson, who added his signature at the bottom of it.

The Hundred Years Bore

During the 18th Century the Froman Empire began a long and ultimately futile border war with Bath. Both sides built up extensive stone defences; the ring of boundary walls around Bath can still be seen though many of them have been hollowed out by the primitive inhabitants to form cave-like dwellings. Today, following the Revolution, these are used to control what can be seen by the tightly controlled visitor parties from Japan and the USA. The defences around Frome have since been extensively mined for building stone. The Imperial Family survived the lean years after the Great Betrayal of 1880 by selling off the material of the outer walls to the Egyptians, who used them to build a large tourist attraction.

French letters

At the end of the 18th Century the inhabitants were caught up in the excitement of the French Revolution. Known as the Great Cultural Revolution, this resulted in the driving out of the aristocratic faction and the establishment of a People's Republic under a Doge. The ruling family (see above) changed their name and eventually returned, the inhabitants being too brain damaged (as a result of celebrating the Revolution with cider) to notice they were the same people with different names. This tendency to be easily duped following the destruction of brain cells with aldehyde-laden rocket fuel of maleic derivation persists today among the peasantry.

During this period the village of Badcoxe was constructed on rational French lines with the usual facilities (Post Office, estaminet, and several brothels.) Today the Post Office has closed, but attempts to have the area recognised as a TOM by the French authorities continue, not least because this might restore free parking to the area and lend an air of respectability, if not chic, to the brothels.

The Revolutionary period is referred to in the well-known passages in MacAulay's Lays of Ancient Frome (mainly otherwise a list of medieval prostitutes), purporting to describe the return of the Foremen under Doge Tarquin, who fought with Horatius the Drunk on the Great Mells Bridge. In the MacAulay account, Horatius is victorious, but sadly in actual history Tarquin slipped Horatius a guinea to buy White Lightning (an alcoholic beverage), and the reconquest was completed in half an hour with the aid of a couple of Radstock minors rented for the occasion.

Adventures in the sheep trade

During the 19th Century the disastrous Sheep Shagger War with the rest of Somerset (recorded in a palimpsest held in Taunton Library in the extensive and world-renowned bestiality section) resulted in suzerainty being ceded by Doge Foreman VII to the Kingdom of Pilton, then ruled by King Michael 9th (a period known as The Great Betrayal). As a result of this war and its eventual resolution, Frome still pays an annual tribute of warriors to the current High King Michael of Pilton (Michael surnamed Eavis, Michael the 23rd., Farmer Mick), whose job is to maintain order among and obtain sexual intercourse with pilgrims during the Solstice Festival. They are traditionally paid by being allowed to claim the contents of the "Portaloos", which are then used in the extensive Frome hide tanning industry, still carried on by the famous Butler and Tanner family.

During the 20th Century Frome largely avoided the World Wars by hiding in Selwood Forest again, and concentrated on its traditional industries of armaments, nuclear weapons development, violent video games, the printing of memoirs of the more unpleasant Conservative politicians, and the export around the world of night club bouncers.

Aftermath of WW2- political schism and decline

Tragically, in the immediate post-war era, North Frome came under the influence of the Communist revolution in its huge neighbour to the North. The resulting war between North and South along the line of the Frome River (in which the river was for a time made impassable to navigation by piled up shopping trolleys) leads to the standoff which is still extant today. The North is a mysterious place where no commercial activity or industry seems to take place, filled with identical blocks of worker's housing, with a near-continuous stream of heavily unladen 4x4s travelling up the almost impassable mountain roads to and from Bath. The South still has traces of its former glories. The Monument to Stupidity, (Dummheitdenkmal, donated by the German twin town, Rottweil) is frequently pointed out to visitors. It is a good place from which to observe the famous Bridge of Sighs which links North and South, defended by emplacements of crack Estate Agents (or Estate Agents on crack, which amounts to much the same thing) anxious to sell 17th Century houses to Northern refugees.

Recent History

South Frome suffered during the War of the Machines (just like in terminator) of the 1980s, and the Cultural Revolution (Major Catastrophe) of the 1990s. At the end of this period many of the self-aware machines that had been developed by local engineering companies emerged from hiding and, after consulting Zen texts, followed Bodhi-Dharma to China, where they were melted down for scrap to make mobile telephones. In 1992, a museum was built in Northern Frome called the Frome Museum, but most of this was destroyed in 1993 in a protest by South Frome activists, Rolling Stone fans, Del Boy clones, Tenderous farmers, and a random Scottish council, in a facility civil war. There was also a 2 day civil war, as mentioned, between the enemy camps, which took place on 31 July - 18 August 1994 (we don't understand it either).

The Present

The Northern Approaches

Today South Frome dreams of its former glories, interrupted only by the outrages of the Northern guerillas who seek to establish a Stalinist/Leninist/Wurzelist Republic allied to the People's Republic of Bath. Its main industries are Arts festivals, junk food manufacture (mainly sold to the North, which is not self-sufficient in anything except housing developers) and the export of cobblestones. Most of the workforce is imported from Poland as the inhabitants of South Frome prefer to spend their time either defending the Frome River from the North, or drinking. Or both simultaneously.

Frome is very notable for being the birth place of a phenonema known as "A Lion's Roar", the product of Martin (best known as a Z Cars extra).

Frome has the largest remaining human rabbit warren in Europe, North Hill House. This aptly named area is used as a holding pen and entertainment arena for all the dysfunctional, overtly sweaty, intelligent, insane, lukewarmy, awesome teenagers of Western England. The District Council derives most of its income from this so-called Reprocessing Facility, but it is at constant risk of closure on Health and Safety Grounds. To the Left, Redrow has recently completed Frome Prison on a site heavily contaminated by industrial waste from the Wurzel Mines. As laid down in the Planning Consent, it is placed on an eminence where it can ruin the view from the maximum number of villages. It is not known how many planners now have undeclared apartments in Spain as a result.

Recent non-Events

UDI

'Breaking News' - a faction in Frome under the leadership of the local Conservative MP, Edward Heath, have announced their intention of declaring UDI from the District Council and applying to become a French Commune. Their manifesto announces that a successful realignment with France will result in better weather, thinner women, advertisements for obscure mineral waters painted on gable ends, and faster and cheaper communication with London via EasyJet.

The Mud War, June 2007

The 20th Mud War between Pilton and Frome took place in a field near Pilton from about 27th-30th June. According to reports, the Pilton army consisted of approx. 170,000 assorted layabouts recruited from all over the country (but mainly the trendier parts of East London) by the High King, Michael Eavis. The Frome army consisted of a platoon of highly trained parking attendants. The cause of the war was a dispute arising from a pub discussion about the causes of local conflicts in 1976, which has been rumbling on ever since.

The result was a crushing victory for Frome. In the usual summer conditions of torrential downpour and mud, the invaders were unable to manoeuvre their 4x4s and some of them were unable to light their spliffs. The Frome army was able to surround the entire Pilton army with a steel fence and contain them completely for several days, while loud, disorienting sounds were aimed at them from loudspeakers. When it was judged that they were sufficiently demoralised, the fence was removed and the invaders left to make it back to Hoxton and Shoreditch as best they could.

It is estimated that it will take at least a year for Eavis to rebuild his army and try again.

Update - June 2007

Following the unsuccessful massacre of the Conservative Party supporter in May, the new Anarcho-Socialist government has begun by doing absolutely nothing, in accordance with its manifesto.

Voting took place during June on whether to continue to be run by the allegedly incompetent, corrupt and remote Mendip District Council, or the allegedly equally incompetent and corrupt but rather more remote Somerset County Council.

The question put to voters was: (A) "Do you want to be governed by the totally wonderful Conservative Mendip District Council, have David Cameron come and pay all your bills for you, free cider supplies, send all the foreign immigrants home and supply you with a free Polish bloke (or, for men, a free hot Polish woman) to do the housework and minister to all your bodily needs."

OR

(B) "Do you want to be run by the Lib Dem Somerset County Council, have Menzies Campbell come round and turn off your TV, have your Council Tax doubled and have all your kittens huffed?"

A total of forty percent of the electorate voted (A) and have been classified as "Too stupid to live". Their names have been sold on to Double Glazing firms and Nigerian finance companies.

The prediction (here!) that it was very unlikely that anybody will care about the result was entirely justified, as the County Council described the poll as "flawed". John Prescott's last official action as Deputy Prime Minister was reported to have been, "not to have given a fuck about the result."

Contact Information

Early Closing: Monday to Friday.

Late Opening: Even numbered days of first week, and odd numbered days of second week.

Doge: His Excellency Lord Bax of Whittox, Order of Merlin, BBC and Bar

Chamber of Commerce: what?.