Archive for the ‘Old Town’ Tag
The owners of Los Gatos tapas bar have a weekly column in the Swindon Advertiser wherein they promote their business under a thin veil of general restaurant lore. A few weeks ago they moved about 60 meters away and just around the corner from their old location.
This week’s column describes a post-apocalyptic hellscape on Wood Street compared to the bucolic safety of the new digs. Again, about 60 meters away and just around the corner from their old location.
In promoting their business’ new location as yob free a welcoming to the middle-class pound, they have pretty much called their old one a loud, filthy death trap. Albeit 60 meters away and just around the corner.
Summary: “That’s right. Fuck the neighbours, fuck the neighbourhood…we are the only venue worthy of your custom in this shithole, so come up for us then run for cover and best of luck to you getting past the war zone that is Wood Street.”
Why DO they have a weekly column, anyway?
Bistecca alla
Fiorentina with a
Platter full of chips.
Name: Les Banquettes Escarpees Rasteau
Type: red wine
Venue: house
Review/notes: I needed a Côtes du Rhone (because I can’t really afford a decent Chateuneuf du Pape) and the guys at Magnum in Old Town (their web presence here) came through for me as they always do. After a couple of pleasantries a glass with some shiraz appeared then another with the Rasteau. The shiraz really pooped on my taste buds but I’ve learned to take their counsel…yum.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
February
Boxes, tomorrow,
Move to their new home and wait
For the furniture.
Name: Casa Planeta Nero D’avola Syrah
Type: red wine
Venue: house in Eastcott night before we get keys to house in Old Town
Review/notes: Good wine with telly in a room full of boxed up books and records. Exodus begins tomorrow.
[DT =Daily Tipple, explained in DT #000 here]
Monthly consolidations/compilations: January
Nudity and gratuitously public displays of deviant sexual behaviour were glaringly absent; and, the consensus seemed to be that all the political victories were already won (despite the situation coming to a head in Russia with open threats against openly gay athletes in the impending Winter Olympics). In 30 years of going to these Gay Day thingies in Atlanta, Amsterdam, Tucson, and Swindon (2011 and 2012), I have never seen a more complacent bunch of people.
Mind you, the acts were better than in years past and the Whispering I was already playing ahead of their scheduled slot on the published programme (which is always more a guideline than an actual timetable).
The Focus on the Family Theme meant there were shitloads of small children (which really give me the willies). On more than one occasion, the recent same-sex marriage legislation was touted as though there were nothing left to achieve. The more addled of the few flamboyant characters were treated to mild derision — same as any other year, but this year they seemed to be singled out.
On the plus side, the Corsairs ruled:
Rank be damned, if this guy isn’t a “Rear Admiral” then I’ve never seen one:
We were handed a flyer for a band and decided to wander up to the stage they were scheduled to play at only to find them standing around prima-donna-ing about the sound and the shift in the programme that had them going on 10 minutes early. A guy that had been smoking pot behind us down in the bowl stepped up, plugged in his guitar, and did a mini-set including some Kate Bush, Oasis, and some of his own music. Didn’t catch his name (truly an impromptu performance) but he was easily the most talented solo act we saw.
Josephine and the Artisans finally started setting up during the stoner dude’s set — with the lead singer looking shocked an d worried about following such a good act. They all seemed very talented: the string section members were awesome, the rock contingent were a decent band all in their own right, and the rappers were decent even if you aren’t much of a hip hop fan. NONE of it worked together and we headed home halfway through the 2nd song.
Inspired by (linked to the London map):
2010:
2011-2012:
2013:
Stretham (2009) gets auto-corrected to the London neighbourhood of Streatham. If you defer to it as “Ely is” then it get’s changed to Eli.
Further back, we have 2006-2009:
2004-2005:
2002-2004:
Good question. Answer here.
[Originally, this project was described here, and you can see the most recent prior Update (3) here.]
25 March 2013: Stir crazy from enforced rest (IT band injury), I took the admonition to limit exercise to gentle walks as including short, hilly hikes and went out into the unseasonable cold (winter set in around this time last year and just won’t fuck off). Picking up a bit of the un-mapped sections of the EPiOT project was the aim, but I also lucked into a fantastic (if oddly situated) kebab stand to add to my annual challenge total:
26 March 2013: Not a twinge after yesterday’s hike so with a half hour till sunset I headed out to the hills and exploring some of the ‘new build’ neighbourhood off Okus (I just know they must have a pub down in there, but haven’t yet found it). Coming back via Grosvenor then William Street, there were some compelling stairs near an old school house that now hosts Swindon Silicon (the Boy’s Entrance is just behind that fence in the photo). Unusually bad luck with dead ends on the steep Fairview (next to the Radnor Street Cemetery) and again on an alley, but that’s part of the fun, eh?
29 March 2013: There was sun. No, really (I say this for the Brits out there), sun and relatively clear skies, I shit you not. With Jackie laid up with the lurgy, I did some errands then headed out to knock out some pesky trails:
These runs have enhanced my appreciation of Art and I passed a basketball court where a kid was wielding a spray can, too deep in thought to notice I had stopped to tie a shoe. I’m a little concerned he was working on top of extant paint when there is such a wealth of virgin canvas just around the corner:
As the alleyways spooled out before me, many more works presented themselves, like this conceptual Minnie Mouse:
And, this mural on a garden fence above the quarries adjacent to the Town Garden:
Philistine that I am, I can only take in so much visual information and have learned to pace myself. I’m glad that I did, too, since the detail above the recently reopened Prince of Wales shows that it was built to be exactly that (the Prince of Wales). The last time I visited this pub was a week before my attempt at a second visit (when I found it shuttered, a year-and-a-half or so back). They reopened a couple of weeks ago and I felt compelled to have something (albeit just a half pint of Carling). I’m sure I’ll be back soon, though.
[*kpw = kebab per week for 2013, as noted in an earlier post and the 15th entry for the 2013 Challenge]
The photoshopped text is an old, Beavis and Butthead style bit of silliness I do every time I see this dealership but can’t help myself (very immature). The kebab was picked up at Caner’s Kebab stand down a road resembling an auto salvage yard just behind Dick Lovett and was quite a find.
I am nursing an inflamed iliotibial (IT) band and off running for a week or two and decided to find a few trails on my other project, covering Every Trail in Old Town when I spotted this little treasure…friendly staff, cheap, and some of the tastiest döner yet. It especially benefits from getting thrown on a hot griddle from the steam table thus carbonizing a portion of the sliced meat. I would score it down for the appearance of the chilli sauce but it was actually fantastic. Love it.
[Originally, this project was described here, and you can see the most recent prior Update (2) here.]
24 Feb 2013, Guilt Run: Spent the day straightening up the basement which, more than it should have, entailed drinking whisky until it was gone and then eating pizza washed down with copious quantities of wine. As penance, I covered another bit of the map; much of it was through very modern and/or wealthy neighbourhoods without character but found what appears to be an old pub or hotel (from the ceramic plaque/tile on the former corner door) with a George V era post box out front. Also, there is a laundrette which will come in handy when the upholstery becomes too soiled to bear:
28 February 2013 Nothing really planned on this run except to knock out some of the alleyways on my warm-up jog to the gym. And, not that much achieved, either:
Followed it up with a walk to and then on from the Glue Pot (cider steels my nerves for a walk past the Bumming Park). Jackie was working till 9 so I made the trip to walk her home:
02 March 2013 We left early to check out this used furniture store that is going out of business only to find they are only open Tuesday, Wednesday, and usually Saturday (but not today). With extra time we went in search of graffiti and found some decent murals and a park with an area once dedicated to wall art (now just covered in tags):
07 March 2013: My body temperature tends to be a bit low (35.8-36°C) and I never really concern myself too much when it comes up to human normal of 37°C. Monday, I was aching all over from what I thought was overdoing the Sunday run; around 8pm I started shivering violently and took to bed with 39.5°C (103.1°F). It has been hovering in the 38-39°C range ever since but spiked again yesterday at work…this is a bit of the path I took home after stopping in Boots the Chemist for decongestants and analgesics:
Graffito where the alleyway crosses the south end of Stanier Street
13 March 2013: After a week of illness the infection has abated a bit and moved down to my lungs so I decided to try the cold air cure on it.
It feels good to be back at it…maybe the next update will cover a much bigger portion of the remaining trails.
[Originally, this project was described here, and you can see the most recent prior Update (1) here.]
I’m glad I extended the natural bounds of Old Town to include everything the estate agents like to market thus, if for no other reason than the legitimate bounds are so small and this gives me a bit more connectivity to the greater region. However, I did choose some butt-ugly territory when I was drawing the initial border. Oh, well…shall we carry on?
It was cold but calm and clear and birds were singing–more spring than winter–so I didn’t linger over the coffee and Sunday Observer too long and got out into the fresh air. The Radnor Street Cemetery has an entrance on my side of Eastcott and since it serves both as a formal Victorian burial ground AND as a nature preserve it is always a nice crossing but especially in the mid-winter morning light. Photos of the RSC next time (or, there are very nice ones at Swindon in the Past Lane), but I was keen to clear some of the bounds from the map today and continued on to the rail bridge that divides north and south Swindon then around to the rail trail that used to connect Old Town Station (and then Marlborough to Salisbury) with Swindon. The final few turns were just ‘zenning’ the trail and I found a quick connection to Bath Road from the house via King William Street (at Eastcott Hill near the Moose Lodge).
Though still winter, the days are getting longer at a noticeable clip and I slipped into my sweats while on the bus and ran from the tented market up Commercial Street with the sun setting behind me. I stopped by the house to drop off my backpack and continued out to the Town Gardens which I found was already closed (winter hours).
At the end of Quarry there’s an alleyway with a great mural on it but the alleyway is barely wide enough for two people to squeeze past one another and the mural is mostly dark colours so I couldn’t manage a decent picture of it on this trip, but there were loads of decent graffiti around including this shiny bit under the Devizes Road bridge over the rail trail next to where I discarded yet another race/hash shirt combo:
The climb up Mill Road/Westlecot was steeper than I was really prepared for and I took it a bit fast. Reaching The Mall, I opted for the flat route past the Commonweal School then a few alleyways and South Street (where one of the Victorian cottages at the Prospect Hill end has a cool bit of signage out back):
Although not a run because I was laden with 6 bottles of wine (from Tesco, not the now-residential Eastcott Hill Wine Store) and other groceries, I explored a bit of the alleyway archipelago.
The route was meant to (and did) take me past the Swindon Cycle Working Men’s Club which is still CIU affiliated but not so much a men’s club or having anything to do with cycling. I read they are looking for new members and as I have moved away from Ferndale WMC (and let my membership lapse and I think it has shut down anyway) and it is pretty close to the house. On the way I spotted this wall in an alleyway (nice the way the door is surrounded by the art) and these neat roof ornaments on Dryden:
Hopped off the bus just after the Magic Roundabout and did a bit of a neat neighbourhood I’ve never explored before and finally entered the mapping zone at the Queen’s Park which is sort of a gigantic arboretum and really holds some promise for spring and summer visits:
On exiting, I realised where I was when I spotted the back of the Jewel in the Crown, but the Holy Rood School was a bit of a surprise.
The Friday run this week took in a bit of Marlborough Road corridor including the area around Intel, the Marriott, a giant wooded park to the south, and the Croft Sport Centre. I also spotted these two houses…the one on the left was the one we were driving out to see if we wanted to rent it just over two years ago but were crashed into by a large Mercedes van. The one on the right was the first one we inspected for this most recent move but the stairwell was too narrow for any of the shit we would have wanted to put upstairs (and the landlord would accept the kitty as a cohabitant).
More next week….
The formal jogging exploration of Old Town began with a quick trip to Tesco (outside the stated bounds but I don’t really colour within the lines). Returning with some mulligatawny and a bottle of wine I avoided the rude pedestrian walkway of Regent Street and did a little of Eastcott Hill turning across from the Sea of Green hydroponics shop:
The next evening was warmer than it has been in weeks and the twilight lingered in the nearly cloudless skies and I took the opportunity to enjoy the hilly terrain, going first down Dover Street to the footpath that comes out across from Savernake then up to the alley behind the houses parallel to the roadway. A couple beat me to the little stair case to the upper ground and westward so I continued on to Bath Road and down Okus to the long staircase down to lower Kingshill. I looped Bowood once to tick it off the list then followed an alley I thought would end after a block but went on all the way (with some road crossings) to the Running Horse. Moreover, it linked to many more alleys, an archipelago to rival Tucson’s.
Back up the Kingshill and via some more pedestrian cut-throughs and I found myself face-to-face with the Clifton and then on the way back by the house crossed paths with the Globe and the Castle…I’ve never run past so many good pubs without stopping, or at least not in a long time. Then, it was back down Prospect Hill to Crombey Street and across the ‘bumming park’ to walk Jackie home from work over some now-ticked-off-the-list territory. {Oh, Jackie’s co-workers refer to it as the Bumming Park because sometime in the annals *snicker* of history it was a cruising zone.}
Next, I entered the map zone at the end of a run from the edge of South Marston on my way to pic up some stuff for supper at the Cooperative. Pushing the last bit of the hill to Christ Church I was going to finish in the Lawns Park but found the cemetery gate locked and decided I was already done. The poignancy of the grave of a ten-year, above, in a little copse with ornaments hung from the trees around it caught my attention and I figured it would have been something I remembered recently from the newspaper; no, this fresh patch was covered in July 2010.
The cemetery is a good one, if you are into these (I love ’em). One odd feature is the large flower bedding area stuck full of metal funeral markers I saw as I exited to cool off in the park before the grocery trek.
A brief jog into Gorse Hill and back left me hungry for a good kebab, but I guess I should have stopped at the kebab van stood in the Wickes car park because everyone in Old Town opens after 3 pm. The mappable bits picked up near the Coop, again, but the Old Town Kebab was my first locked door followed soon after by King’s Best BBQ down Victoria Road, but I had some other errands to do and figured I could wait it out…
However, the wait was fruitless as I arrived back at King’s at 3:15 to find it still locked and dark and uninhabited. Shit, they are the oldest kebabery in town and have a fantastic reputation for quality and cleanliness (and I was feeling lazy and didn’t fancy a walk back into Old Town proper). Testing some alleyways along the way I loaded up at the Old Town Kebab House and did a little strolling dining through bits of the park before heading home:
New project for late winter and early spring: learn a bit about my new neighbourhood by running every inch of it. The map, above, is a liberal description of the bounds of Old Town; a more accurate one would only include the region from Christ Church to the Locarno to the site of the old rail station to the Town Gardens to Prospect Place and closing the path but this larger area is what the estate agents list areas as when they want them to sound hip or charming. Besides, I could do Old Town proper in an hour or two.
I’ve already covered most of the paths available, but this will force me to systematically explore alternate paths and alternate connections whilst getting a better feel for the new territories.
[Added 22 February: To clarify the map markings…they usually are part of a longer run or hike, but each new marking will only go from the start of the first new ‘mappable’ path to the end of the last new bit. In this way, I hope to minimise the number of overlapping lines.]
Update 1, 13-16 February 2013
Update 2, 17-23 February 2013
Update 3, 24 February – 13 March 2013
Update 4, 14-29 March 2013
Update 5, 30 March – 23 April 2013
Daily since 19 January, I have trudged across town carrying or pushing loads of leftover shite the mile-and-a-half from the old house to the new one. I have some moving company skates that got left behind by a company in Arizona that used them to move 1200 pound pieces of delicate equipment between buildings; on two separate and quite rainy occasions I steered these laden with 200-300 pound loads of boxes shrink wrapped onto the skates with large potted plants on top. Other days, I had canvas straps holding hemp shopping bags all over me bandoleer-style, and I received uncharacteristic deference on the streets and pavements as, quite obviously, an insane person.
Today was the oddest trip yet while being the lightest load so far. I stuffed a Bogen tripod, a crowbar, and just about anything else that would go in the backpack then grabbed the propane canister remaining from the ex-BBQ and headed off. The shadows looked at times like a winged demon and at others like a ninja although as I passed the shops in Regent Street I could see clearly from the reflection in the window I just looked like a jackass with some sort of heretofore unheard of fetish (note, this may be true).
I thought this might make a crappy Kevin Costner movie, but I ran out of steam on the poster idea (“rated PG for Pansies and Geraniums which will winter over nicely with a bit of mulch” just seemed like too much effort to add).
All that remains are the Hoover, a rake, the strimmer, a fan (to dry the carpets post-cleaning) and some plastic planters and window boxes–more fucking garden shite.
Oh, yeah, that’s my street on the right side of the Beehive, and it is steeper than the picture let’s on (here’s the view down the other way from a few mornings ago–the yellow house halfway down is the one I’m standing in front of in the poster):
“Yeah, still doing the move.” [Pause] “Western Street in Old Town. Mental.” — one of our movers on his cellphone to a mate
Western is narrow and steep and after 8-10 inches of snow accumulation it is only good for recreation but the movers didn’t want to cancel the job and so at 8 am their truck arrived on Ferndale and they started shifting our shit to the new digs.
Most of the stuff was packed into these cube shaped boxes, 36cm on a side, that are marked with the hazard classes of all varieties of chemicals that were originally shipped in them. They are sturdy for their intended purpose, so we tend to load them as full as possible: they are the precise size of record albums so half a shelf of vinyl will pack in, and you can easily fit 75 pounds of books into one.
As the boxes are all more-or-less identical we were careful to mark them so it would be easy to find the bits we needed as we slowly unpack. So, in which of the 10 boxes marked “KITCHEN” or “KITCHEN SHITE” should I look for the plates, wine glasses, pizza wheel? Dinner was served on alternative place settings.
The cat was a trooper, for the most part (which is surprising because he is afraid of EVERYTHING except being flung 10-12 feet through the air onto a mattress or exercise pad which he absolutely adores). It is about 1.5 miles to walk from the old to the new place, and he hates the cat carrier but once off Ferndale, a very busy street, and into the snow-covered park nearby and then the Oasis bike lanes he seemed mesmerized by the scenery and calmed down a bit. Even on the walk up the crowded, pedestrianized shopping lane of Regent’s Street he seemed to be looking around more so than his usual cowering from strangers (although he may have been imploring the passers-by to save him from this mad man who was carrying him, in a cage, through this bedlam.
Once at the house, though, he had a few sniffs of stuff he should recognize then hid under the couch until I sorted the boxes into their various rooms. He came over and curled on my chest as I lay on the floor at one point (in pain from the days exertions), and then once the bed was reconstructed he found a pillow that smelled familiar and crawled under the blanket there.
The neighbourhood seems friendly so far, with fewer yobs and more young folk that appear to be starting families (the kids we’ve spotted are too young to yob it up yet). The walk to Jackie’s work is pleasant and the street is dead silent (as are most of the narrow, one-way lanes in the buurt). I think this is going to work out just fine.
A bottle of Cava cooled nicely here but we’ll give it a day or two before we take the coffee and newspaper out for some fresh air
Well, it is true that we LOOKED at a couple of houses in Montagu Street but preferred Old Town over Rodbourne as it is so much closer to the things we actually do in town. And, the house we settled on isn’t sharp or sophisticated outside but inside works so much better for us; to mix my Bob metaphors, it seemed to say, “your débutante just knows what you need, but I know what you want.”
[Sidebar: I did a 30 minute lecture, recently, with more than 50 Bob Dylan lyrics,marked on the white board as ‘ticks’ as I progressed, peppered throughout, and only one professor from the audience came by to congratulate me on THAT point…Oxford may be grand, but it isn’t really cool.]
But, returning to the starting theme, we got a basement down the stairs.
It has been a nice run so far, I have to admit (despite obvious glitches), on Ferndale Road, and I’ll still come over for the butcher and the Italian deli, but rarely more…”when bringing her name up he speaks of a farewell kiss to me…He’s sure got a lotta gall* to be so useless and all muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall….”
———————————————————————————————–
*Jackie doesn’t cut Jerry any slack…I love the man and the things The Family did for us chemically and, for that matter, matrimonially (probably more to do with Kleps, the guy who did our wedding, than her hatred of the Dead, but same batch, same dip). See you kids who know us at the house, the rest schedule a meet-up at Riff’s, the Vic, the Hive or the Castle!
So, here we go…another fucking move. Let’s try to make this one a little more permanent for awhile.
We are moving house from Ferndale to a spot more-or-less equidistant from the Beehive, the Castle, and the Globe (which had been shuttered every time I passed it back when I used Eastcott and Prospect hills for speed work). Exploring the new neighbourhood I found it open and full of builders talking about various contracts they’ve had with infamous prisons–Dartmoor, Shepton Mallet, the recently closed Wellingborough…odd eavesdropping to do here.
The building is one of those rare cases that look promising outside but completely modernised within. The floors are laminates, the walls are pristine new plasterboard, the bar itself is fairly prefabricated (does Ikea have a speciality shop for the drinks trade?). But, it seemed a right friendly house and they had football on two tellies and a large pool table. And, Doom Bar on tap for 3 quid so what’s not to like?
The holiday ‘what’s on’ board is still up, but we’ll keep an eye out for interesting announcements
The Endless British Pub Crawl 
The owners of Los Gatos tapas bar have a weekly column in the Swindon Advertiser wherein they promote their business under a thin veil of general restaurant lore. A few weeks ago they moved about 60 meters away and just around the corner from their old location.
This week’s column describes a post-apocalyptic hellscape on Wood Street compared to the bucolic safety of the new digs. Again, about 60 meters away and just around the corner from their old location.
In promoting their business’ new location as yob free a welcoming to the middle-class pound, they have pretty much called their old one a loud, filthy death trap. Albeit 60 meters away and just around the corner.
Summary: “That’s right. Fuck the neighbours, fuck the neighbourhood…we are the only venue worthy of your custom in this shithole, so come up for us then run for cover and best of luck to you getting past the war zone that is Wood Street.”
Why DO they have a weekly column, anyway?
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