Massive illuminated sign on Blackburn skyline sabotaged to read "TWATS"

That's right; between 16:26 and 16:50 today, the huge illuminated sign on top of Blackburn's most famous landmark, the Thwaites Brewery, was sabotaged to display the word "TWATS" in massive red letters.

The reasons for this are unclear, but it seems likely that the spectacle is related to the recent news that the brewery, a centre of Blackburn's economy since the 19th Century, is planning to axe 60 jobs as part of a scaling-back operation, following the failure to sell land around the brewery to supermarket chain Sainsbury's.

Sadly, shortly after these photos were taken, the iconic sign was switched off, presumably as the brewery staff realised what had happened.

We understand that Blackburn's newspaper, the Lancashire Telegraph, will be leading with this story in tomorrow's edition. Which will be hilarious. Here's some more angles for your amusement.

All photos by Alex Martindale. Feel free to reproduce commercially or non-commercially, but please retain original credit. This is NOT a satire or a hoax.

UPDATE: Thanks to Ken Phillips for pointing out that the sign was visible from 16:26, a good fifteen minutes earlier than I first saw it.