Swindon Town Centre (Purgatory Circle)

Been down town, to the same old places, familiar faces. The beard and beanie busker, strumming, ignored. The giggling teenagers, impressing each other with outrageous remarks at indifferent strangers. The overly polite shop assistants. ‘Can I help you?’ Not with anything of importance, no. The mentally ill man, shuffling, smiles madly to himself, creating reality out of the apathy in which he lives. Swindon town centre, you groan under the weight of your own insignificance. Your purgatory circle offers delay, a hamburger, rain and despair. There are no bargains here. Everything is for sale, but regret is the only thing that you have to offer.

*Photograph is of Richey Edwards (Manic Street Preachers) showing off his tattoo of Dante's Inferno.

A Strange Incident at Lydiard Park (A webcomic about Swindon Town's mysterious crytid)

The Comfortable Cage of Sweet Routine: A Day Interrupted in Swindon Town Centre

Poem by: Mark.A Pritchard (aka Rorshach1004/Swindon Poet)
Date: 3rd September 2015


Sweet routine, you comfortable little cage, on tracks I roll, going where I always go, but suddenly, leaves, a red stop sign, the comic book shop has a little notice on it’s closed door.

‘Gone for an emergency, back before 12:30pm at the latest.’

So I’m waiting in a coffee shop, not the vulgar ‘Friends’ type, the old fashioned type, the type where you sit at a little wobbly table, brush the sugar away, and watch for wasps.

I sit eating a brown bread cheese and onion toasty, with coffee.

The coffee is black, and much nicer than I thought that it would be. It shocks me into wakefulness, banishing the routine, the dream, this is reality now, and I’m forced to stop, stare and think about it.

The shoppers fly past, ignoring me, as they ignore each other, this is society, no communication, just little tracks of routine still running.

I watch the routines fly by as my own tracks are delayed, thinking back to mornings five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years ago.

I have changed, but am still the same, sitting alone as I always did, not because of any reason, it's just the way that things are, and I do not question it now.

I finish up my coffee and there is a little smiley face at the bottom of my cup. He’s smiling at me, wishing me a pleasant day. I smile back, is this communication?

I sit up, the Polish waiters talk amongst themselves, and it’s almost 1pm. The comic book shop should be open by now.

I walk for two minutes, it’s open, the stop sign turns to green, and I’m back to my old routine again.




The beautiful image at the top of this poem is ‘Alone In the Crowd,’ by US artist David Derr. You can find his work here: 
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/alone-in-the-crowd-david-derr.html

Sweets Galore- The Best Little Sweet Shop in Town

Address: 21 Canal Walk, Brunel Shopping Centre, Swindon, Wilts SN1 1LD

Telephone number: 01793- 938130

Website:
http://s500499853.initial-website.co.uk/

Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sweets-Galore-Swindon/661370433904428




I’ve just been to my local sweet shop where I picked up a bag of Strawberry Creams, and a bag of half Sherbet Lemons and half-Strawberry Sherbets.

The second bag would usually have been full of Sherbet Lemons, but Sweet’s Galore is so popular that the Lemons ran out, so I had to be topped up with their Strawberry cousins this week.

I hadn’t tried Strawberry Sherbets before, and was given a free sample by the nice lady behind the till, and decided that, yum yum, I’ll top up my second bag with those deliciously flavoursome sweeties thank you very much.

It’s a happy day for me, as I’ve just discovered a yummy new sweetie that could easily begin to rival the awesome Sherbets themselves.

You’ll find me in Sweets Galore every Tuesday afternoon, topping up my weekly supply of sweeties.  I love the place. It’s great, the sweets are plentiful, the prices are low, and there’s always a friendly face waiting there to remind me that the past didn’t die, it’s still here, if we want it.

I say that because last week I was watching a television show featuring Heston Blumenthal doing his best Willy Wonka impersonation and bemoaning the fact that good old-fashioned sweet shops simply don’t exist anymore. Err, sorry mate, but they do, you just have to look for them.

You’ll find Sweet’s Galore in Swindon town centre (right next to McDonald’s). It’s not nostalgia, or a time warp, or a relic of a long gone, and much missed era. It’s a brilliant sweet shop, that is beloved by children and adults alike, and it's doing a roaring trade in Swindon town centre, right now, in 2015, and why wouldn’t it be?

It’s a friendly place, in a great location, and they sell what people want to buy. They stock a bountiful selection of traditional sweeties and new creations and they have everything that a sweet toothed person like myself could possibly desire.

If you like sweets, then they’ll have what you are looking for, and something new for you to try as well. The shop is a family business, the owners are cheerful, friendly and helpful and you will get a big bag of sweets for a couple of quid.

Heston Blumenthal might appear on television bemoaning the demise of the traditional, old fashioned sweet shop, but he evidentially hasn’t been to Swindon town centre any time soon. If he did pay us a visit then he’d find that the past didn’t die here, it’s still alive, just as good as ever, and it’s going to be here for a long time yet.

Sweet’s Galore doesn’t need me to tell them that they are doing a fine job. They already know, as they spend all day with a packed sweet shop serving smiling face after smiling face. So all that remains for me to say is, thank you Sweets Galore, keep doing what you are doing, and keep on being the best little sweet shop in town.


Rating 10/10 (Top sweets, top prices, friendly and helpful staff and a shop that always has a happy and contented feel about it)

Theatre review: The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes- Atheist Picnic at Lydiard Park

Event: Open Air Garden Theatre
Venue: Lydiard Park, Swindon, Wiltshire, UK.
Date of Performance: Friday 31st July 2015
Performers: Chapterhouse Theatre
Website: 
http://www.chapterhouse.org/show5.html
Writer: Laura Turner
Director: Phillip Stevens


The ideology underpinning this quaint, twee and inoffensively anachronistic play in the park was that ‘progress’ means the abandoning of religion, and that we need to boldly stride into a new world order of humanism, abandoning religion to the dustbin of history where it rightfully belongs.

This disregarding of religion (mainly Christianity) is ubiquitous today, especially in the UK, and especially on the BBC, so it’s no surprise to see that the writer of this play already has BBC writing credits under her belt. Her atheistic ways will fit in very nicely at Jimmy Saville towers, so I wish her all the best. I’m sure that she’ll do very well for herself writing liberally deluded multicultural fantasy plots for EastEnders, or the latest murder or hospital shows where politically correct multiculturalism is forced onto the BBC audience of wilfully ignorant, corporate indoctrinated statists.

I have no doubt whatsoever that this cultural ideology of Godlessness will have been barely noticed by the majority of the audience in Lydiard Park on Friday night 31st July 2015.  I’m equally as sure that the writer herself wouldn’t have noticed it. Why would she? God is silly, right? God is for children, right? God doesn’t exist, right? That’s not a radical point of view in suburban households in the UK of 2015, it’s the majority view, accepted like gravity or the idea that democracy, bombs and taxes equates to freedom.

Laura Turner, the nice lady who wrote this play (and I’m sure that she’s very nice) has written a simple play about Sherlock Holmes, and her main concerns will be about entertainment and clarity, not ideology. Her ideological underpinning of atheism is a cultural assumption. It’s how she thinks, and it’s how she has been taught to think. This indoctrinated, programmed version of reality informs her writing and subconsciously assumes that her audience will share the same cultural, atheistic programming as herself.

If you are taught as a child that God doesn’t exist, then that must mean that he doesn’t exist. It’s not something that you think about, it’s just taken as a given. That’s probably as far as Laura’s thinking goes. God doesn’t exist, of course he doesn’t. Would my teachers and television lie to me? Of course not, and so onto my career as a writer.

I assume that Laura won’t have thought very long and hard about the atheism in her play. Like I said before, it’s a cultural assumption, and all it says to me about the writer is that she was brought up in a UK middle class suburban household, watched television, and went to school, that’s all. I could be wrong, but that’s all I get from her writing.

In ‘The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes’ her intention would have been to construct a light-hearted, fun, slightly silly, enjoyable play that would be easily understood by an outdoor audience watching it in a park.

In that sense, she did a fine job. The plot was silly, and easy to follow and inoffensive. The bloke playing Holmes (Matthew Christmas) was suitably eccentric (in a BBC Doctor Who kind of way) and I enjoyed my Ginger Beer as all of the nice, middle class atheists around me drank their wine and rustled for crisps in their picnic hampers. The play was the backdrop to the evening. It rumbled on, serenely, in the background, lots of wine was consumed, and everybody enjoyed a lovely, early evening picnic in Lydiard Park.

My lasting memories of the evening will be of concentrating really hard to hear the dialogue, trying to work out who the villain was, and being slightly shocked, but not that surprised when the ideology of the play became apparent as it began to wrap up. The play was okay. It was very middle class, BBC atheist, tame and polite. It was a mainstream play for people who watch television and think that religion is something for museums, not everyday life.

I didn’t hate it, but that’s probably because I’m not a religious man. If I were a regular churchgoer then I’d probably be quite offended, but that’s the mainstream in the UK today. The mainstream has abandoned Christianity and abandoned tradition. I’m old. I notice these things. It happened slowly, but it’s the norm now. Jesus might be alive, but there’s little sign of him in the UK of 2015. The people have turned to humanism. God no longer exists. The people are their own gods now. Does that sound dangerous to you? I am living in a society that has rejected God. That can’t be good, can it? What do you think about it? Seriously, I want to know.


Rating: 6/10 (Easy to follow, silly, fun, but it has an ideological underpinning that left me feeling cold)

Theatre review: Shady Business (Swindon Arts centre)- A jaw achingly funny show

Theatre Company: The Western Players
Writer: Robin Hawdon
Location: The Arts Centre, Old Town, Swindon, Wilts
Date of Performance: Wednesday 11th March 2015
Future performances: Thursday 12th March, Friday 13th March and Saturday 14th March 2015
Click link for ticket information:
https://swindontheatres.co.uk/Online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=E4AAB139-C653-4641-A2BC-5CF400E410A4


Shady Business was so funny, so silly, so daft and so bewilderingly ridiculous that it left me with severe jaw ache by the end of the show.

I can’t even remember the last time that something made me laugh so much that my jaw hurt, but that’s what happened to me tonight. I wasn’t expecting this play to be so funny, so I guess it caught me unawares, and my poor old jaw still hasn’t quite recovered.

I’m not even going to discuss the plot, the acting, the scenery or anything else about this play. All I’m going to do is offer a warning.

That warning is for anybody who intends to see the show in the next three days, and here it is. Before the show begins you need to do some serious jaw exercises in preparation for what you are going to see.

I’m not messing around here. This is a serious warning. If you are going to see this show then you need to properly prepare yourself. Much like the beginning of strenuous exercise you need to prepare your body properly for the experience, but rather than stretching your calves and hamstrings it’s your jaw muscles that need to be properly prepared.

Here’s my expert advice- Open your mouth as wide as it can go, then relax, open again, and repeat. Then scrunch to the left, scrunch to the right and relax. By repeating these exercises shortly before the beginning of the show your jaw should be properly warmed up and ready for action. Do this (and don’t forget to repeat the exercises during the mid-show interval as well) and you should be okay, but ignore my warning and expect severe jaw ache by the end of the show.

You might be thinking that this is a bit of a strange review, and you would be absolutely correct in thinking that way because this isn’t a review at all. No, this is actually a public service warning to anybody who intends to see Shady Business in the Swindon Arts Centre over the next three days. I feel it’s my duty to put out this warning, because boy my jaw hurts now, and I’d hate to see anybody else make the same mistake that I made.


Rating: 10/10 (A very funny, very enjoyable show)

Race report: Swindon Parkrun- Saturday 3rd January 2015: It’s a family thing

Click link for race results table:
http://www.parkrun.org.uk/swindon/results/latestresults/



In truth, I find run reports to be tiresome, so in keeping with my feelings on the matter I’ll keep this one short, and hopefully not too suburban nice and fluffy in it’s composition.

I run the Swindon 5k Parkrun on most Saturday mornings. It’s a routine I use to judge my current level of fitness. This Saturday I had a seasonal head/nose cold. I was okay, a bit weaker than usual, sneezing and sniffing a bit, but I wasn’t going to miss the run. Why? A few reasons, partly because I’m stubborn, but mostly because my fast brother was down for the weekend (he lives in the friendly north) and as he was doing the run I wanted to join him for the morning. Also coming along was our fast dad, recently retired from the ideological home of ISIS/Al Qaeda, the western backed evil dictatorship Hellhole known as Saudi Arabia.

We went to the park early. It was unusually dark, wet and not too cold, but with little wind. There were plenty of muddy puddles, but that’s okay. I find that it’s the wind that slows you down, cold and rain are no big deal. I didn’t notice that there was a big crowd, but there was. Almost 400 runners in all, that’s a lot. How did I fail to notice them?

My race started with a testing first lap. I was feeling rough, so coasted into an easy rhythm, not chasing the skipping gazelles as they sprang past me, head down and straight through the muddles (a name accidentally coined by the race organiser shortly before the run).

I actually enjoyed that first lap (it’s a two-lap course), and that’s rare. I usually feel terrible, but taking it easy due to my cold meant that I actually enjoyed a part of the race for a change. On the second lap I put my head down a bit and engaged in the usual one on one battle that we all engage in on a weekly basis. I passed a guy; he tracked me around, then near the end he fell off a bit as a speedy couple passed me. One hundred yards to the end I put on my usual annoying (for other runners) desperate sprint, and passed the aforementioned couple at the finish line. My time: 23:05. Slower than usual, but that’s what happens when you run a cautious first lap, and also probably what should happen when you run with a bit of a cold.

My fast brother (Gareth Pritchard) won the race in a ridiculous time of 18:13. Yes, he came first. Told you he was fast, didn’t I? Congratulations to the speedy bugger, and congratulations to my dad (Keith Pritchard) who is still acclimatising to the wet and cold running climate of the UK after spending over a decade running in a crazy desert country ran by a Mafia family of western backed gangsters. His time, an impressive 26:08, but he ensures me he’ll get a lot faster in the next few months, and I know that he will. My dad’s a very strong willed bloke, just like me, just like my fast brother. It’s a family thing.

So that’s it, end of race report. Crap, it looks too long. Hope I didn’t bore you too much. Hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and New Year, now get back to work you bloody slaves. Bombs don’t pay for themselves you know, and our political masters have a lot of dictators to support, terrorists to fund and women to subjugate, so they need you early at work tomorrow morning.

Theatre review: Journey’s End- The never-ending futility of war

Written by: R. C. Sherriff
Performed by: The Western Players
Performance Date: 5th November 2014
Venue: The Arts Centre, Old Town, Swindon
Future Performances: 6th 7th and 8th November, at the same venue.
For tickets: 
http://www.skiddle.com/whats-on/Swindon/Arts-Centre/Journeys-End-by-R-C-Sherrif-presented-by-the-Western-Players/12205152/

https://www.wegottickets.com/location/7108


I’ve just spent the evening at the theatre watching a play that explores the utter futility of war. The play was first performed in 1929, and it had me thinking. What has really changed in all of these years, in all of these decades of movies and theatre performances, and poems, and paintings, and songs about the futility of war?

What has really changed? Modern warfare is different. Young men no longer kill each other in trenches. Today the young men kill each other from a distance, with high tech weaponry, a missile or a drone. But are the dead any less dead? Are the orders not followed just the same? What has changed?

As I travelled back home I passed Bus shelters with advertisements for the latest video game. A game called ‘Call of Duty,’ a game of war where the young are taught to kill on a computer console. It’s a game. It’s not real. Just like a drone flying over a Pakistani village. Shoot, kill, get medal, complete level, follow orders, you are a hero now. What has changed?

Following orders, the biggest problem that humanity still faces

Journey’s End elicits these emotions. It makes you question, makes you ponder on the futility of endlessly following orders from those in positions of ‘authority.’ What would happen if the young men said No? What would happen if humanity as a whole refused to kill each other, for the rich, for the country, for the corporation, for the medals, for the banks, for the oil companies?

There was a heavy scent of authenticity about the entire performance of Journey's End, an aroma that wafted through the excellent set, the muddy boots, the ringing wet socks, the cigarette smoke, the unwashed bodies, the sweat and grime of waiting to die in a military uniform.

The performances increased in intensity as the play progressed. This was the opening night of the show, and the confidence of the cast increased and increased, rising at a crescendo until the very final scene, a scene that wiped away all recollection of Private Baldrick and his Rat au Van. Instead you are left with a sense of deep sadness that these funny, complicated, tormented, decent men died because they were told to die, and being honest patriotic chaps, they felt it was their duty to do so.

Four members of the excellent cast

As the play concludes The Western Players leave the audience in a state of numbness, of shock. There were jokes during the play, but none at the end. The shadows of Blackadder, Ronnie Barker and Allo Allo loomed, but the emptiness of following orders shone through as the final curtain dropped.

It’s so sad, and more so in the knowledge that this order following mindset continues today. No, we don’t have the draft, but what we do have instead is a dearth of opportunities for the young, working class men living in this country today.

In the Swindon town army recruitment centre window there is a list. A list of how much you will be paid if you put on a uniform and go to die in Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Libya, or Syria. Iran next? Probably. The pay is very, very good. Far better than what you would get working in a warehouse or at Tesco’s. So no, there is no draft today. That has changed. Instead there is the money, the possibility of getting out of unemployment, out of hopelessness, out of drug addiction, petty crime and prison. It is poison laden bait, and sadly enough, far too many of our young men take it.

Journey’s End is an excellent play, performed at a very high standard by the Western Players. So much has already been said about the futility of war, but this play is far from derivative. Instead, it is funny, sad, and agonising in it poignancy, but the final emotion it tears from me is pure, hot anger. Yes, anger. It made me feel tremendous anger that the wars of yesterday are not so different from the wars of today. Things have changed, but they remain the same. Lessons are unlearnt, and the business of war continues as usual.

Rating: 9/10

Theatre Review: ‘Nightmare’ by the Western Players- Swindon Art’s Centre- 19th June 2014

‘Nightmare’- A suspense play by Norman Robbins.
Performed by: The Western Players.
Cast: Karen Evans, Sarah Cousens, Tony Manders, Matt King, David Cousens, Annie Harvey, Helen Pain and Mark O’Donnel.
Produced by: Stuart Jackson.
Performance Date: Thursday 19th June 2014
Location: The Arts Centre, Devizes Road, Old Town, Swindon.
Website: http://www.westernplayers.co.uk/comingsoon.htm


It’s the undetermined, unpredictable nature of professional sports that is supposedly the lure for those watching it, but when it comes to the England football team usual rules do not apply. You know exactly what is going to happen, every single time. The fans are going to get their hopes up, the players are going to sound upbeat and positive, stating that this time it’s going to be different, and then the actual match happens and they do what they always do. They slip on a banana skin, fall spectacularly on their face and then spend the next few weeks moaning about how unlucky they were.

So when there was a choice between watching a new play, ‘Nightmare’ by the Western Players, and the latest England team world cup debacle, there was no choice at all. The play won hands down. I would laugh at the prank falls performed by the England comedy football team later on, learning that they had once again shot themselves in the foot, just like they always do. Some things never change, but on to the play.

I went into this play completely cold, as I always do. That’s how I get the most out of both theatre and film. To go in there with only the broadest of outlines on what I am going to watch, then sit down and let the experience take me where it may. All I knew was that it was a ‘suspense play,’ and that it was to be performed by a group called ‘The Western Players.’ I had no prior knowledge about the plot, themes or setting, so when things happened before me I could enjoy them as something completely brand new, and enjoy them as such.

The performance opened with a simple staging of a comfortable, yet slightly dated living room, and the set did not change throughout the entire duration of the play. There were some sound effects, but that was all. All of the drama unfolds within that one setting, and without spoilers, that seemingly inconsequential factor will play a huge role in later events.

There were seven performers in the play, with some better than the others, but all performers were clear and precise in the delivery of their lines. There was no mumbling, and no confusion about what was being said. As an audience member I always knew what was going on, and how the plot was progressing. It’s difficult to pinpoint my favourite performer, but special mention must be made to Sarah Cousens and her portrayal of a kind-hearted character who is both devastated and confused by unfolding events, and Karen Evans in her audience favourite portrayal of the local town gossip.

This however is an ensemble piece where all performers are needed to service the plot of misdirection, false leads and surprises. It’s one of those plays where you think you know what is about to unfold, but are then delighted to find out that you have been just as confused about events as some of the characters themselves.

The key to a play such as this is clarity. You have to know exactly what is happening to fully enjoy events as they unfold. ‘Nightmare’ is performed with perfect clarity, and the plot has an easy, enjoyable simplicity about its execution. There is no sense of ‘missing the clue’, and there is a delightful moment at the conclusion of the play when the audience realises exactly what has happened, and all of the consequences that this now entails.

‘Nightmare’ by the Western Players is a wonderful play that I have no hesitation in recommending. It’s a play of misdirection with a delightfully shocking denouement that will have you leaving the theatre very much satisfied with what you have just experienced.  I’ll conclude this review by stating the obvious, that my decision to miss the all-too predictable football match and watch a far less predictable, and far more enjoyable play in the Swindon Art’s Centre was a very good decision indeed. Rating: 8/10