If you like

• big pictures
• of large numbers
• of small things

you’ll LOVE it. Unless you’re a car manufacturer.

There’s a huge one of these car facilities on the M5 motorway in England, going south-west towards Clevedon or other Somerset towns. I used to see it when driving to LOUD Mastering studio in Taunton or friends’ houses. Avon and Somerset is a part of the world which fascinates me. For a start you have Portishead town which spawned a rather good band. I would say there is a slight difference in pronunciation emphasis between the town name and band name. The area of Avon is named directly after the River Avon, derived from something like “afon” in Brythonic, which in modern Welsh just means “river”. Then in Somerset, I’ve never been to Nailsea but the town of Clevedon is an ultra-quiet coastal town with a pier. Then deep into Somerset (by my reckoning) you have those peculiar village names like Curry Mallet, Curry Rivel and Temple Cloud. Of which the latter has a signpost saying “canine hydrotherapy centre”. Which to me was a new concept but apparently not entirely as mystical foo-foo as it sounds. Speaking of which, there’s also Glastonbury town which of course lends its name to the festival – known by locals by the quaintly modest name of “Pilton Pop Festival”. Back to the cars, you see them on the right-hand side while driving due south-west over a bridge. On a map it would be here. It looks very spectacular down at Avonmouth Docks and I wouldn’t do it justice by attempting my own photograph. If you’re driving, don’t take your eyes off the road. These thoughts all occurred to me within seconds of seeing those Guardian car pictures. Serious.