Here we go again... why do I defend Swindon when I wasn't even born there? Perhaps because my formative years were spent in Swindon - pouring over books of Kandinsky and Pollok's paintings in the warm, welcoming comfort of the Central Reference Library; and perhaps the memory of walking up to Barbary Castle on a cold and winter-swept Christmas afternoon still means something to me; and perhaps selling my jacket to Gilbert (Ray) O'Sullivan (fellow student at Swindon School of Art) so I'd have something to eat for the evening; and the folk clubs and the Communist Party headquarters in some forgotten Swindon basement in some forgotten Swindon street are, still, part of 'my' Swindon...

Jesus, I don't give a tinker's cuss for <b>Country Life</b> and the petty wank*rs that run it, I care for a town that has, and had, a soul, and am so saddened to see the lovely and wonderful buildings of the old Corn Exchange in Old Town fall into ruin and disrepair, and the Mechanics Institute (next to the railway cottages) go the same way, and the quiet land between Coate Water and the Downs be surreptitiously gobbled up by the excuses of Bath University and the greedy developers and councillors that pay lip service to god-knows-what.

But then I'm just a sad old Swindon hippie from the 60's...