Archive for the ‘Swindon’ Tag
The bartender at the Village Tavern had this whole Karen Allen thing going on: short, big smile, longish and curly brunette hair, and an aura that suggests if you were wrestling her and got a raging hard-on she’d be neither offended nor threatened (but probably amused and mostly disinterested unless it gave her the upper hand in the match). That last list item, by the way, is still on the table if she expresses any interest…some things never change, and hot Karen Allen lookalikes (or similar-to’s) have always been a weakness.
The house is truly huge and you can enter off several streets. Most of the folks were crowded around the bar most likely so that they didn’t diffuse into the cavernous rooms around it or into one of the nooks that while cozy could accommodate a dozen folks. There aren’t a lot of pubs around this estate, though, and I bet it gets packed most nights.
The beer selection is okay, for lager, and they have an ale pump but it has fallen into disuse. However, they DO stock real ale in the bottle and it seems a reasonable price. Regardless, this was a reasonable turnaround point for a short (5.1 mile) run.
This isn’t the only Wheatsheaf in Swindon (link goes to this one) and in fact there is another one less than a mile away. This one sure is friendly, though, and family-friendly as well with lots of gobby kids running around barely under parental control (but all in good fun, mind you). It appears that a young couple are running this place and they seem to take an active interest in the lives of their regulars, drifting out and chatting with an obvious level of affection for their punters. This really makes you happy to see, and it’s probably why they were doing such a lively business so early on a Monday evening. I can think of more than one pub I’ve been to that could take some lessons from these guys.
It’s an Arkells house but they didn’t have the Pilsner on so I tried a smooth but didn’t particularly like it. It reminded me a bit too much of Tetley’s.
There was a collection of rugby tickets stuck above the bar which makes me wonder if you have to be actively a rugby fan to manage a pub named Wheatsheaf. I know the lovely landlady of the Wheatsheaf in Didcot is always banging on about rugby and it seems like I’ve seen rugby kit at other Wheaties. Hmmm…strange.
I left the Kings just as the bottom fell out of the clouds…it was absolutely pouring and my glasses were opaque with spray outside and steam closer to my eyes before I got a block away. I dove into the Roaring Donkey for shelter and a pint of Tribute.
The bartender looked similar to Billie Piper, only prettier. She also had proper rough bar help hands that made me feel girlish and wimpy when she handed back my change, so I stiffed her on the tip; that’ll teach her a lesson for being hot, working a hip job, and pointing out my sad case of “professor-hands.”
There is an upper bar through a window from the one I was in. A table full of folks nearby went through a couple rounds while I nursed my beverage awaiting clear skies; they spoke of their Wednesday evening bar, which I don’t remember the name of, but that they always come here for Thursday and Friday night. Good boys, them.
There’s music here sometimes, too. Friendly, funny bar. Glad I found it.
I left the Goddard Arms and headed toward Victoria Road for the descent into the Town Centre to buy dinner wine but the Kings Hotel caught my eye and I decided that one more beer couldn’t hurt. In fact, it turned out, this was a very good decision on my part as I met the manager who sat with me the entire time chatting about pubs we know in common, other towns we like, and the launch (19th August 2011) of the new restaurant in the venue…the house still has that new car smell, or, at least fresh paint. If the food is as good as the attention to customers when the place is not even really properly open then this will be a dining experience not to miss.
Oh, and this was pub #670.
With some dental surgery scheduled for Friday morning a final run before a recovery day was due, the rain be damned. I also figured that hopping off the bus a mile or so from the Worthington Inn would give me the chance to tick off pub #669 on the way but when I got there the place looked like the panel to the left, and not the one to the right like I had assumed it would:
With the Worthington not only closed but bulldozed and replaced with tract housing, I continued the run across town and up the hill to Old Town where I found my way to the Goddard Arms, The Kings, and the Roaring Donkey before heading down to pick up wine for supper:
So there I was, no shit, in the Goddard Arms and the place was much nicer than someone who had just climbed the hill in the rain and at pace, but the help couldn’t have been nicer and served me up a Wye Valley Butty Bach for a very good price. Noting all the appropriately dressed folk, I took up residence down the end of the enormous bar.
For a Thursday, the place was packed, but has a bit of a soulless feel to it. There were five ales on the pumps but there were also frequent posters plastered around this elegant room for kiddy drinks. That’s a shame.
16 August 2011, Swindon Advertiser, page 3 above the fold
On Tuesday, my local paper made me laugh out loud on the bus ride to work with the page 3 article above.
1: The rivers around here can be waded across by small children.
2: A substantial fire brigade response seemed warranted.
3: Animal rescue specialists were found and dispatched to the scene.
4 (and best of all): The cow finished its drink and got out on its own, probably due to the disturbing approach of sirens.
They call it “the Silly Season” when politics shut down at the end of summer because there is usually very little to report. The Swindon Advertiser is a true local paper and covers almost nothing nationally relying on, for example, 5 or more reports of missing kitties to fill column length each week (the town is the size of Chattanooga, but there have been roughly 5 murders logged in two decades–compared to more than 100 per year–so fair enough, eh?).
Here’s a Google street view of the crossing at Hannington Bridge:
While sitting in the Liden Arms, clouds rolled in and I couldn’t use the sun for directions anymore. Liden is all rolling hills and dead-end streets and footpaths that curve imperceptibly away from where you reckon they ought to be going, so I dashed around aimlessly until a spotted a footbridge over Dorcan into Eldene; at least that was generally the way back home. The neighbourhood is a little shabbier in the places I was passing through than just across the bridge and when I finally found a little shopping plaza (mostly with corrugated steel protecting the shops closed for Sunday) I was amused to see a bunch of 9- and 10-year-olds climbing all over a large recycling dumpster trying to rock it over. I bet houses are cheap here.
The recycling/recreation area was at the back of the Crumpled Horn and I couldn’t resist, so went in and ordered a Fosters from the long line of taps. “We’ve only got Carling.” Cool, I like Carling and I had a look around while he poured it up. The interior is weird, large timbered construction loosely spiraling up into the roof. There was a tele playing Italian football and I tried to catch as much of the commentary as possible until some guys came in from the porch and started speaking in a strange language which turned out to be English, three of them with heavy southwest English twangs and the fourth with a definite Chicago accent. He turned to me and said I was sweating like a runaway slave, but not knowing I was an American he was taken aback when I answered by nodding, knocking back half my pint, then saying, “Let me ask you something important…Sox or Cubs?” After a very short pause he said, “awww, I’m Southside all the way. Besides, the Cubs’ll break your heart.” He went back to his other conversation as though this were the most normal day of his life, which it may well be.
It was nice and hot lunchtime Sunday so I took a run toward the southeast corner of the Swindon metroplex. Down in Walcot, Eldene, and Liden the footpaths are actually truer trails than the roads and using that knowledge and my shadow thrown by the noonday sun I was able to navigate to the Liden Arms. It also helped that the North Wilts HHH hare-for-the-day had prelaid the trail from the pub and I could follow it backwards to the bar once I picked up the first ‘check.’
It is a modern pub, built in 1980 but it is welcoming (if a bit cavernous) and the crew and customers seem quite friendly. These modern, suburban estates tend to be insular by design; the roads are hard to navigate as a stranger and it is easier to drive most places as a resident. So, the face-to-face interactions down the pub may be the only time you cross paths with your neighbours; when a stranger wanders in covered in sweat and spouting drivel with an incomprehensible accent, they take notice. Usually the way you get eyed as the interloper carries with it a vague sense of threat; here, I got the feeling that a much rarer (but still common) excitement was afoot…that someone whose stories haven’t been repeated dozens of times, to them, had come into their midst. It almost made me feel guilty to leave after just one, but I was only 5 out of 9 miles into the run and needed to go while my legs were still warm.
“I like my television loud, my beers cold, and my gays flaming!”–Homer Simpson
There was no tele and the pop music in the background was moderate, if not my cup of tea. I had a cider, so I can’t speak for the beer. And, except for the large-ish women necking on the back porch you might not even know you were in a gay bar…Homer would be so disappointed.
To be fair, England is not the best place to play Queer/Not-A-Queer, the game wherein each passerby or new face on the television is evaluated for their swish factor. Growing up in Atlanta in the 70’s the queens were either screaming or draped in assless chaps; at our gym in Midtown in the 80’s, NAQ’s were almost nonexistent. But, in England there seems to be less reason to be so obvious; you’ve almost got to add a transitional category: Queer/Not-A-Queer/Just-English.
Even the Mailcoach remains more ambiguous than it should be. It has a camp name but they left it spelled like the Post, not like it is sporting a post. The house has a rainbow flag on it but that doesn’t register with a lot of brits; they had planned on using the Grade 2 listed barn adjacent to the garden for barbecues before it collapsed suddenly. Except for the one-legged macho man doll hanging out (as though cottaging) on the public facilities down the alley, nothing is really stereotypical about the joint at all.
So, if it is a pleasant day pop in for a beer and grab a seat on the porch. Watch as shoppers pass by: they all surreptitiously glance into the garden in slightly different ways. Teenage girls giggle, obviously dominant males quickly glance while their submissive girlfriends look concerned about the competition (or longingly at the lady-love tongue wrestling going on at table #2), and it’s hard to put your finger on just WHAT the look large Asian families do as they pass by. Have fun.
The laboratory was closed last night to install new high voltage transformers and do a 5 year inspection of the electrical risers, so I was free for the day (or at least until about 7 pm when I needed to bring our instruments back online). It was a lovely, if windy, afternoon and I spent a bit of it running up toward Penhill. On the approach to the Arkells Brewery I spotted the Kingsdown (essentially the Brewery tap) and dashed in for a pint and a look around.
Inside, there was a bar and a few feet of it set aside for drinkers but it really looked more like a restaurant or even a tea room. The bartender also seemed offended at the idea that someone just wanted a beer and pulled my Pilsner (the Arkells Czech Style Pils is my current favourite beer since getting one at the Lansdown Sunday) with a look of disdain and took my money as though I were handing her a steaming turd. I drank in the huge wooded garden and left. I don’t plan to return.
The lab shutdown went well enough and I think I got a lot of maintenance done in the relative quiet of all the pumps being off that I would otherwise have put off. Out the door at 8:45 I sprinted to just make the 8:50 bus back to Swindon…and then I realised just how hungry I was. As we pulled into town an hour later, I hopped off just before the Magic Roundabout and grabbed a small kebab at the Magic, a little stand run by a friendly turkish dude near the County Ground.
This really hit the spot and was one of the better tasting piles of lamb, salad and chillies I’ve had all summer. £3 for just enough to satisfy you; beat that if you can.
Trip hazard, indeed
So, two weeks in a row we sat around in the Town Gardens watching archly femme characters in sequins and spangles dance around doing camp renditions of popular music. At the Mela there probably was less “tucking,” but at Swindon Pride there was a much weirder vibe, which I especially appreciate.
Elvis impersonators at gay festival...good. If they aren't hard butch lesbians...bad (or at least the promoters didn't try very hard
We showed up after the parade had already departed so walked through the deserted grounds to catch it as it came back through. Made up of about 200 souls and trailing on for no more than 300 meters front to back it was a surprisingly brief parade. My home town (Atlanta) is known as something of a gay Mecca and I’ve had countless conversations with drag queen prostitutes whilst awaiting buses or friends out on Piedmont or Ponce de Leon; so, I might be a bit jaded: the Atlanta Pride Parade goes on for hours and features an endless variety of, erm, variety.
Turnout was a bit light, or at least the NUMBERS that turned out were low.
But, Swindon is quite small by comparison and that they have a festival like this at all is kind of cool. Also kind of cool, it is obvious while sitting around people-watching that most of the folks there are not gay, bisexual, transgendered or even considered the possibility of an encounter with these folk the festival is ostensibly intended to serve. You have to smile when you think that some of the more stylish folk amongst the target audience wonder, “is this REALLY what we’ve been struggling for all these years?” Yep, look around and see all the poorly dressed and sit-up-deficient Swindians…this is exactly what you’ve fought for. Welcome to the hell the rest of us must deal with.
This was part of the parade. Seriously, hashers (STRAIGHT hashers) would show up in more outrageous numbers and ostentation. C'mon, bitches...show us some outrage, or out...rage. I hate the modern world.
One thing I enjoyed was the treasure hunt a youth group had put together. You had to get at least three of the items on their list to get a prize bag from them; I picked up an info pack from the local college, a goody bag from Unison (a local LGBT support group) and got the names of some of the coppers working security for my 3 items. Among the stuff in my youth group prize bag were this surprisingly small purple cock ring and this toy that is “not a toy…a souvenir.” I’m sure this distinction helps the kids (gay or straight) in the sweatshops that manufactured it and cheap tat like it sleep better at night.
Fuzzy "souvenir" and small cock ring (they claim it is a "wrist band," right?) given as treats by the LGBT youth group at Swindon Pride 2011
I ran the two blocks from the Rat Trap and spotted the Crown. Well, what the hell, huh? I dove in the front door and found a giant bar, bigger than I thought it was from the outside. Eventually finding the beer, I got a 3B (every pub in Swindon seems to be Arkell’s), and went outside to enjoy the early evening and plan the rest of the run (still needing to stop two more blocks away at the Aldi for the bourbon).
The food specials I spotted didn’t look great but as I sat out near the Motel section of the pub I watched in starving awe as a salad with a pile of delicious looking and smelling sliced beef piled atop was brought out to the remarkably (if R. Crumb-esque) attractive couple that sat far too close for comfort. [Swinger bar? Hmmm…I wonder.] Oh, my idea of attractive might be different from yours.
After work I fancied a bit of bourbon and the Aldi in Swindon (where I can get some of that delicious Clarkes Bourbon) is not far from the Rat Trap, so the shopping trip got combined with pub reconnaissance. Well done, me! The Trap is a real gem.
I went in via the large lounge and was served up a Donnington’s then wandered about. Early even for a Friday, I eventually found the crowd of one in the Public Bar and settled in for a bit of chat. Ady, pardon the spelling but that’s what he said, told me about the quality of the food in the Trap having listened patiently to my gush about the quality at the Southbrook. I might tend to believe him, though, as I sat right next to the kitchen and the steam from the dishes smelled delightful. Moreover, I had already clocked the menu board and they have a 16 ounce steak for under £11, twice the flesh for about the same price as most other places.
2 condoms for a pound…and they have an alarm on the box (but not like the one in the women’s room at the Meet Rack, Tucson, Arizona)
The Public Bar already seemed familiar, reminding me of the sort of place back home in Midtown Atlanta you could wander into and, while there would be loud dudes watching sport, there would also be oddballs from the neighbourhood just hanging out…grant you, the oddballs in Stratton St. Margaret might seem a little tame compared to guys that drink Lysol (read this article to get an idea about this one) or drag queen prostitutes, but it was still a little slice of home, in its own way.
The queues for food were too long at the Mela so we opted to have a barbecue back at the house (now that the neighbours have buggered off apparently just ahead of the bailiffs, we can at last enjoy our garden). The queues for the portapotties weren’t too bad but afterall they are still portaloos and I really didn’t fancy hitting one of these after a bunch of revelers that had been scarfing curry from outdoor vendors all afternoon had been using them. We opted to find a more suitable facility.
Emerging from the Town Garden area above the bicycle rail-to-trail we were confronted with a perfect solution: the Plough, an old pub at the point in Old Town where the road to Wroughton suddenly falls away downhill (better photos on the website). Inside we found a couple of nice rooms inhabited by folks for whom we were the only strangers. I got a 3B and Jackie a vodka tonic and we went out to the garden for some fresh air.
Well, garden in name as the house is on a cliff hanging over the old rail line 80 feet below, but there were some nice plants. And speaking of cliffs, the more lubricated and salubrious of the two guys out on the porch was also Cliff. A bit more friendly than I would have hoped, he seemed harmless enough but that didn’t stop his friend apologising for his behaviour.
“He can be a lot worse than this. At least he hasn’t taken his harmonica out.”
“I hope that’s not a euphemism.”
Later but before we finished drinks and hit the head, we heard what sounded like a train whistle and crashing down below. I climbed up the wall to look down at the trail on the old rail bed and there was Cliff, toothless and tangled up in the twisted mass of bicycle parts he had just steered into the rock face, laughing until he could find the actual harmonica and make the train noise again. As I sat back down, I said to Jackie, “everyone knows Kenny.”
The Town Gardens is my favourite park in Swindon and it gets used frequently for festivals. This weekend it hosted the Swindon Mela, billed as a celebration of all things asian. This was an awful lot of fun although far too crowded for my taste; still, if moved to a larger park it might lose a bit of the cosmopolitan flavour that the Town Gardens offer. Also, the Garden is at the highest point in town and that lends a bit of an air all by itself.
By asian, the Brits almost always mean Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and Bangladeshi but it was nice to see such a wide variety represented (although Indian geographically, there is a substantial Goan population in town that has a vibrant culture and a unique identity, for instance). I didn’t note a lot of Iranian or, looking further east, Thai stalls but the crowd made it hard to get close to any of the information booths or vendors. There was a little segregation to note:
The ethnically English among the crowd (and a lot of us other pale folk) found the most culturally familiar fare at the Cobra Lager stand. Bitter and strong (like me!), it was refreshing after the climb to Old Town on this warmest day of the season.
The Bollywood actor Jeet worked the crowd not from the stage but face to face. He even came back onto stage and performed more (again, right at the railings to the delight of the mostly female fans) when the much more aloof and (it seemed to me) self-important Silinder was fashionably late. After his extra gigs, Jeet came strolling through the crowd with his offspring, shaking hands and chatting amiably with anyone who came along.
With Jeet away (there’s a dirty joke in there somewhere), the stage filled with a female dance troupe and the crowd up front quickly exchanged young women for a bunch of dudes.
The overall crowd mix remained about 60% caucasian British, 40% Asian, with 2 or 3 Caribbeans and a couple of Americans. Advice for next year’s visit: arrive early and stake out a good place near the Bowl after getting some food and beer (the queues are enormous after about 1 pm).
The Castle is my current favourite pub. I walked in and felt immediately at home. The clientele were roughly my age (μ ≈ 45, σ ≈ 8). The conversation was intelligent but also mostly bollocks. Three punters were working on crossword puzzles and the papers they were doing these in were the Times, the Guardian, and the Independent.
A guy walks in and says, “yeah, give us a lager, then.” Everyone laughs at him and the tender pulls him a Doom Bar which appears to be as perfect as the one I had in front of me…crystalline, dark, perfectly settled and a delight both visually and in flavour. Close to the top of the hill in Old Town, I hope our next house is close enough to make this our local.
Hopped off the bus at the cop shop out on the A420 and started a run with the intention of doing a four mile arc to the house and taking a break at about 2.5 miles in Old Town at a pub. I got a little lost and confused, like you do, and wound up down south near Coate Water. A bright spot was that the Sun Inn appeared on the periphery of my line of sight. I dashed in and had a pint of Hurricane.
I had heard no news at all from Friday (hectic day at work and I skipped lunch when I would usually scan the online news sources) so was fairly surprised to find that 1) Norway has their OWN problem with self righteous christian fundamentalists that think their manifest mental illnesses are actually political justification for all sorts of atrocities and 2) Amy Winehouse finally popped her last balloon. This latter one effected me less than I would have hoped…quite a talent, but in the long run she lived a lot longer than I thought she would (my bet, for which I have lost the betting slip, was for Boxing Day 2010).
The house is really large and the staff is friendly enough. My camera batteries were flat, so I snatched the photo off google street view.
Wifi password = aeroplane
Two nights ago, the circus next door spilled out onto the streets with some yelling and screaming followed by a visit from one cop who hauled away a girl when another cop showed up and went into chat with the neighbours for an hour and a half…we poured a couple of drinks and, like many of the other neighbours, took up observation posts in hope-against-hope that the paddy wagon would show up. It didn’t but another cooper did and started interviewing neighbours a few doors down from us. Before he could get as far as our joint, an emergency call came in and he and two other cop vehicles posted at either end of our street rolled off with sirens going. Shit, missed opportunity.
Last night, though, our viewing of a documentary about a teenage drag queen in some lead mining town in County Durham (I love BBC 3) was interrupted and a better opportunity for temporarily relocating one or more of the next door neighbours emerged. We gave it a few minutes to make sure this was going to be a big blow-up, but it seemed to have staying power. The coppers must have been too busy to answer the multiple calls from up and down the street this time so I sent them a note (expurgated here of identifying details as per the vagaries of libel law, here):
Earlier adventures available here, but there will be more:
24 April 2011–Part 1
19 June 2011–Part 2
21 June 2011–Part 3
17 July 2011–Part 4
TP’s is not the most palatable place to imagine a drink when observed at street level as you wander down from the library, the Brunel Centre, the Parade or wherever. The blokes that quaff lager out in the open air seating lend a menacing atmosphere that you don’t get in a lot of rougher bars in more dangerous locales…sort of equal portions of GHB and GBH potential. This, it turns out, is an unfair prejudgment of a fairly nice lager bar…in the light of day. The guys that hang out may be creepy but they are just taking advantage of the great location for people watching.
Inside you get a comfortable feel for the architecture of the building that extends above the lucite façade. The furniture is comfortable and enough of it is loose so that you could move it to another table to crowd around with friends; there doesn’t seem to be any concern about the stools being used as weapons, to put it another way. That said, it is obviously a party bar, a place to come and get hammered on an evening. The lager taps are in 8 clumps of 5, spread out about 15 feet apart the length of the huge bar; adverts for the kind of sugary kiddie cocktails (served in fish bowls, how fun!) that amateur drinkers love sit on every table.
From Swindon Adver, 25 Feb 2012: http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9553700.Bar_wins_its_fight_to_stay_open_later/?ref=eb
The bartender at the Village Tavern had this whole Karen Allen thing going on: short, big smile, longish and curly brunette hair, and an aura that suggests if you were wrestling her and got a raging hard-on she’d be neither offended nor threatened (but probably amused and mostly disinterested unless it gave her the upper hand in the match). That last list item, by the way, is still on the table if she expresses any interest…some things never change, and hot Karen Allen lookalikes (or similar-to’s) have always been a weakness.
The Endless British Pub Crawl 
Trip hazard, indeed
So, two weeks in a row we sat around in the Town Gardens watching archly femme characters in sequins and spangles dance around doing camp renditions of popular music. At the Mela there probably was less “tucking,” but at Swindon Pride there was a much weirder vibe, which I especially appreciate.
Elvis impersonators at gay festival...good. If they aren't hard butch lesbians...bad (or at least the promoters didn't try very hard
We showed up after the parade had already departed so walked through the deserted grounds to catch it as it came back through. Made up of about 200 souls and trailing on for no more than 300 meters front to back it was a surprisingly brief parade. My home town (Atlanta) is known as something of a gay Mecca and I’ve had countless conversations with drag queen prostitutes whilst awaiting buses or friends out on Piedmont or Ponce de Leon; so, I might be a bit jaded: the Atlanta Pride Parade goes on for hours and features an endless variety of, erm, variety.
Turnout was a bit light, or at least the NUMBERS that turned out were low.
But, Swindon is quite small by comparison and that they have a festival like this at all is kind of cool. Also kind of cool, it is obvious while sitting around people-watching that most of the folks there are not gay, bisexual, transgendered or even considered the possibility of an encounter with these folk the festival is ostensibly intended to serve. You have to smile when you think that some of the more stylish folk amongst the target audience wonder, “is this REALLY what we’ve been struggling for all these years?” Yep, look around and see all the poorly dressed and sit-up-deficient Swindians…this is exactly what you’ve fought for. Welcome to the hell the rest of us must deal with.
This was part of the parade. Seriously, hashers (STRAIGHT hashers) would show up in more outrageous numbers and ostentation. C'mon, bitches...show us some outrage, or out...rage. I hate the modern world.
One thing I enjoyed was the treasure hunt a youth group had put together. You had to get at least three of the items on their list to get a prize bag from them; I picked up an info pack from the local college, a goody bag from Unison (a local LGBT support group) and got the names of some of the coppers working security for my 3 items. Among the stuff in my youth group prize bag were this surprisingly small purple cock ring and this toy that is “not a toy…a souvenir.” I’m sure this distinction helps the kids (gay or straight) in the sweatshops that manufactured it and cheap tat like it sleep better at night.
Fuzzy "souvenir" and small cock ring (they claim it is a "wrist band," right?) given as treats by the LGBT youth group at Swindon Pride 2011
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