raised through sponsors and donations have since been distributed to local community groups, sports clubs, schools, public services and charities. A competition is held early each year to select a Carnival Court comprising a Queen, Princess and Prince. The main event is a Saturday afternoon parade of themed floats through the town. Carnival week features a funfair in the Market Square. Cultural references The town is mentioned twice in the diaries of Samuel Pepys. On 22 July 1661, Pepys stopped off at "Bigglesworth" to buy a pair of warm woollen stockings. On 5 August 1664, Pepys's wife, on a visit to relations in Huntingdonshire, sent him a message saying she had arrived in "Bigglesworth" on the coach from York and would be home next day. The diarist John Byng, 5th Viscount Torrington often refers to the town and its Sun Inn. Biggleswade is mentioned on the TV Series Monty Python's Flying Circus during a Piranha Brothers Sketch. The Biggleswade high street can be seen in the opening credits of the 1971 Get Carter film. In the Doonesbury comic strip, the character Zonker Harris buys a British peerage which grants him the title "His Lordship the Viscount St. Austell-in-the-Moor Biggleswade-Brixham". Twin town Erlensee, Germany since 2000. In recognition of the twinning there is Erlensee Way on the King's Reach development and Biggleswade Strasse in Erlensee. Plans In February 2019, Central Bedfordshire Unitary Authority gave outline planning permission for a village of 1,500 new homes east of the King's Reach development. Notable residents Notable people born in Biggleswade include John Manton, Methodist minister and founder of Newington College in Sydney, Australia and Henry Ryland, the Pre-Raphaelite painter. Dan Albone, inventor and cyclist, credited with making the first practical farm tractor, the Ivel Agricultural Motor also lived and worked in the town. Charles Penrose, radio comedian and singer of "The Laughing Policeman"; the children's author Christine Chaundler; and science fiction writer Philip E. High were all born here. Others include Ian Mantle, vehicle engineer and rally driver who grew up in the town; the stage and TV music director of The Muppet Show, Derek Scott; and British Olympic rower William Windham. Richard Walker, angling journalist, author and photographer, lived by the River Ivel in Biggleswade from 1978 until his death. Pam Rhodes, novelist and BBC Songs of Praise presenter, runs a boarding cattery in the town. Peter Kendall, Chairman of the National Farmers'