Peter Gabriel's WOMAD festival could well become Wiltshire's event of the year after a superb weekend of entertainment, played out in glorious sunshine.

I don't know how much the event must be worth to the county but it must run into millions of pounds, not just in the money that flows into petrol stations, shops and pubs from people going to the festival, but also in introducing the county to thousands of people who have never had cause to come here.

They might well be back to hang out at Avebury or look for crop circles, bringing more cash into the areas as a result.

I still think the festival is finding its feet after just two years at Charlton Park. The locals gave it a fairly wary welcome last year, a feeling that was not helped by traffic choking the north of the county to a standstill.

No matter how right on or tourism conscious you are, you are not going to be well disposed towards any event that prevents you from reversing out of your drive for hours on end.

I also think WOMAD organisers need to reach out a bit further than just their immediate surroundings. Schools from the Malmesbury area have had workshops with performers and have been given the chance to sing on the festival stage.

I think the organisers should be looking to do the same with schools from further afield, like in Chippenham, Corsham, Calne, Devizes and Marlborough too.

The event still keeps quite a low profile across the county and we don't really hear much from them until a few weeks before the festival starts.

I think there is so much to celebrate about WOMAD, the rest of the county ought to be invited to the party as well.

We've had fun and games trying to sort out pictures this week.

First we wanted to get a picture of Chief Constable Brian Moore with his new deputy and assistant chief constables to go alongside a story about Wiltshire's encouraging crime figures.

You'd have thought the police would jump at the opportunity for a bit of positive news, especially in the week a police marksman expertly hit his own hand.

But getting this relatively simple photo was anything but easy. It was like we'd asked for a picture of the chief riding on a unicycle juggling copies of murderers' signed confessions.

When we finally got just the deputy and the assistant chief together after three days of negotiating, they refused to wear body armour, even though we'd requested that on Monday. They said we hadn't given them enough notice.

Apparently the new chief has requested all officers wear the armour when they are out and about.

Then also today there was a fiasco outside Whitehall Garden Centre in Lacock where we were taking pictures of protesters against the centre's expansion plans, which come before the district council next week.

Director Peter Self and his brother came out while we were setting the picture up and stood in front of the Whitehall sign to stop us getting a picture of it.

They then threatened us with a solicitor if we didn't stop, until our photographer Adam pointed out he and his subjects were on the public highway.

Before long the police turned up to see what all the fuss was about. I'm sure Adam would rather have been nicked while trying to get an exclusive picture of a royal or a rock star than a picture of some children outside a prveyor of lawn feed and slug pellets.

To be fair Peter Self did ring later and apologise for overreacting. But if you see the picture in tomorrow's paper and wonder why two grumpy-looking men are standing in the background, now you'll know.

The Greatest Show On Earth came to Chippenham last week so at the weekend we took our five-year-old daughter to see it.

Bobby Roberts Circus is one of a dying breed of travelling shows and you have to wonder how much longer they can keep going in a world of computer games, digital TV and Simon Cowell.

I can remember going to Bily Smarts when I was little and the Big Top being just that, a cavernous tented auditorium that seemed to be the size of Wembley Stadium.

Maybe that was just because I was five but in comparison to the ramshackle affair that pulled in to Allington Farm it was another, altogether more exciting world.

Bobby Roberts Circus carries a certain amount of controversy wherever it goes because among its acts is a live elephant.

Animal rights campaigners have called for people to boycott it because of that but there was no evidence of anyone listening at the weekend when about 200 people turned up, which is about 150 more than I expected to see,

There were two forlorn-looking animal rights activists (although I've seen wheelie bins looking more active) outside the entrance yo the show site. They were waving a sign about animal cruelty that was so small visitors were in danger of driving into the horse enclosure trying to read it.

They had a point about the elephant though. A more pathetic, wrinkled and lumbering creature I have not seen outside of England's back four at the 1998 World Cup.

It was not actually performing but was led out into the ring at the interval to allow the owners to charge punters £5 a time to have their picture taken with it.

I can't imagine why anyone would want to have a photo of themselves next to what is almost a corpse but nevertheless the queue stretched all the way round the ring.

It was touch and go whether the poor elephant would live long enough to make it to the end of the queue, though doubtless the punters would barely have noticed.

The elephant is supposed to be in retirement but I reckon the circus made the best part of £100 out of it while it was having its picture taken.

Most pathetic and painful of all was that it obviously realised where it was and kept attempting some half-remembered routine from decades ago that involved putting one foot up on to a platform that wasn't there any more.

I'm sure the creature is as well looked after as possible, and I am certainly no expert, but make it schlepp up and down the M5 for a living doesn't seem much of a retirement plan.

But if the poor old thing is bringing in £100 a show you can see why they do it. Just one photo a day is enough to keep it in buns and hay.

The rest of the show was okay, there were some good acrobats, a juggler and a strongman, all of whom left my daughter and her friend saucer-eyed, but it was all a bit tame for a cynical old git like me.

I don't know if it was the fact that the balancing act had a paunch and a mullet or that the clowns were about as funny as bowel surgery but it all seemed a little cheap and run down, as if the show family responsible were trying to squeeze a last few quid out of the public before the whole industry, like that poor old elephant, gasps its last.

But then again maybe that's what my mum and dad were saying 40 years ago on the way out of Billy Smart's.

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Sometimes you just can't win with people. This week we heard that a new estate agents is opening up in Chippenham.

I thought this was a nice story, after all with the property market in the state it is, opening an estate agents is a bit like Noah's next door neighbour launching a landscape gardening business just as the door of the ark bangs shut on the final boarder.

So I got Lucy one of our reporters in Chippenham to write a story. For some reason I thought the agents would be delighted with the attention.

But no, Lucy came back to say the agents, having given her an interview, would now not agree to us publishing the story unless we allowed them to vet every word.

I said, as I often do to people, that the reporter would read back the quotes we were going to use.

But the junior partner she spoke to was not happy with this and came through to me.

It transpired that the sticking point was that Lucy had meantioned in the article that the partners in the new agency had all worked at another firm that had been merged with Strakers.

The junior partner wanted this removed from the story. I wondered why. "It is because that is free advertising for Strakers," he said.

Then the senior partner came on the phone, saying that he wanted to check all of our story to see if the facts in it were accurate. I asked him if the fact that Strakers had merged with their old firm was accurate. It appeared that it was.

I told him that, as it was accurate, I didn't see the need to rmeove that fact, even if he felt this was in some way a free plug for Strakers.

Did I mention that the firm in question was Strakers? Strakers in Chippenham? I did? Good, so we've stablished it was Strakers then.

In the end the senior partner said he did not want us to do the story about him launching a new estate agents if it was going to mention Strakers.

So we are not running it and of course we will not be mentioning anywhere that the firm previously involved in the merger is Strakers.

I think I'm going to take packed lunches to work in future, going out in Devizes for a sandwich is becoming too hazardous.

Last week I was confronted by a bolshie charity collector and today I was almost set upon by a gang of feral teenagers.

I was just wandering into the Brittox to get a sandwich(tuna again) and struggled to get past a group of about seven teens blocking the narrow walkway.

I brushed against one of them as I eased through the gap, only to be met with stream of abuse from the reedy looking individual who boasted pinched features and a spotty complexion that made him look look a ferret that has had a pizza thrown at it.

"Watch where you're going, you four-eyed ****-******, or I'll ******* deck you, you ******* *****," he merrily quipped.

I was so taken aback I apologised. "I'm sorry did I hurt you?" I asked.

"**** ***, show me some respect you ****," he gaily rejoined.

One of his weasely friends scraped his knuckles along the ground towards me and joined in with this merry banter. "Oi, ****, say that to my face, jus get out of my face or I'll ******* headbutt you, I'll ******* deck you. Your ******* lucky I'm busy or I'll ******* do you, you ******* ******. Get in my face and see what happens you ****," he intoned, bringing to mind a young Oscar Wilde.

He spat all this out in the manner of a south side LA gang member, an act slightly ruined by the fact he was riding a pushbike and had a Wiltshire accent.

I decided debate wasn't the way to resolve this situation and wandered off, with the torrent of abuse following me along the Brittox as I went.

"That's right you ******* ****, walk away, you'd better ******* stay out of my ******* face, you ****," called my new friend.

What shocked me was the vitriol, as well as the variety of swearword from my neanderthal foreheaded opponent.

I can remember the odd bit of cheek to my elders and betters when I was 14 or 15 but nothing so hate-filled as that

I've always been of the slightly liberal opinion that there is good in everyone and that unsocial behaviour is often rooted in background.

But a few moments in the company of such naked aggression soon shifted all that lily-livered nonsense and I was all for court orders to remove young offenders' dangly parts.

I was a bit bemused why a) these children were not at school and b) why no truancy officer was out looking for them.

I came to the conclusion that the fact they hadn't turned up for school was probably reason for celebration rather than concern. I seriously doubt their absence would bring down the grade average.