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Whilst walking home today, I saw shop fitters putting up the illuminated signage on a newly refitted shop at the local parade of shops. The shop, formerly a letting agent, had been closed for over four years and continues a recent upturn. The 12 bar is doing goodish business (despite its odd approach to opening hours), the local sub-post office was refitted just over a year ago and is now much brighter and the pharmacy was refitted after flooding last autumn. The Shanghai restaurant and associated take-away do a steady trade and the Greyhound pub has gained the business of the locals that used to frequent The Ship (now the 12 bar). Only the second-hand hardware shop and florist seem to be customer-free zones. So I hope the new shop does well.

The sign? ‘Smakosz Polish Delicatessen’.

The list of candidates in the local elections have now been published (though you have to search for your polling station by selecting ‘where’ before the site will tell you). (Actually, they’ve been published for about a week, but it’s taken me until now to work out how to get the list from the official site.) Those for central ward are an interesting bunch, honest. There’s David Cox (independent egg) who’s apparently taking the man-of-mystery approach. Listed next is Karsten Evans (green egg) whose only promise is “I can be a ‘pain in the neck’ when I need to be.” So no different from most other politicians then, for whom being a pain in the neck seems to come naturally. Other candidates are Karen Leakey (blue egg), Derique Joseph Montaut (red egg) and Steven Francis Pipe (yellow egg), all of whom, as predicted, are committed to fighting crime and anti-social behaviour, dealing with traffic congestion and protecting the green spaces in the town centre.

Either it’s been a slow news day or there’s an election in the offing for this to be worth attention.

RAMBLERS and cyclists in Swindon should find the way forward a little clearer as they pursue their leisure activities.

In three years’ time, the council hopes that 90 per cent of the town’s footpaths and cycleways will be easy to use.

At the moment 86 per cent of the 211 miles of public rights of way in Swindon meet the Government standard.

So an extra 4% of 211 miles will be easy to use. Hmm…. If the quote in the Adver from a personage in the local branch of the Ramblers’ Association is correct

“I haven’t noticed a dramatic change over the years – perhaps the overgrown footpaths that exist do not lead anywhere in particular.”

then perhaps I won’t bother to seek out those extra eight miles.

As it seems to have received very little attention elsewhere, I’ll give a small toot here to a recent government announcement that the outgoing chief executive of Network Rail will be spending a little more time in Swindon.

Anyone making jokes about getting research onto the right track will be unceremoniously ejected from the nest!

Whilst not the leaflet currently getting the blue nest hot under the collar, the latest glossy from the red nest is full-on negative campaigning. Like their blue nest opponents’ recent glossy, there are finally spun financial statements, with a 20% increase in Council Tax in the last four years compared with a 35% increase in central government funding over the last ten years (which equates to less than 13% over four years — rather less impressive).

And the council is, apparently, failing to clear graffiti. I must have been imagining the ongoing removal campaign by the council…. Oh, they’ll also ‘protect urban Swindon from over development.’ I presume local councillors from the red nest will be asking their government colleagues to reduce the centrally set housing density targets then? Perhaps not….

This evening, for the first time, I was served a pint of beer in a glass marked not with an engraved crown but with a printed CE mark. A sad evening indeed. I suppose I should be glad that, if only in this instance, the European Union has at last embraced an imperial unit of measurement.

It seems the New Mechanics’ Institution Preservation Trust may be taking the wrong approach to save the GWR Mechanics Institute. Rather than petitioning the prime minister to save it, they should be campaigning for it to be demolished. If they wait thirty years, a council leader will then persuade developers to rebuild it. Perhaps said councillor should try persuading the developers of Swindon Central to take on the Mechanics in the same way he has persuaded those of Regent Place to rebuild the Baptist Tabernacle.

Whilst I’ve been undertaking an in-depth study of cocoa levels in eggs, the first offering from the blue nest has plopped through my letterbox. A 16 page glossy A5 booklet — clearly they have money to spare. According to the waffle on the back cover they are ‘more green, more local, more family-friendly and less arrogant’. That localness is clearly demonstrated by the vast amount about what they are doing in my ward. A big, vast zero. Not a single mention of anything specific for the people of this ward. (There is a mention of their plans for the canal, but that is primarily for visitors to the town centre — benefit to the inhabitants is just consequential.) Highlight of the booklet is the index that tells me that Page 1 is the Front Page. Wow! Such insight!

I’m less impressed which their spun financial statements, where they compare the figure for three years’ worth of Council tax rises under the previous administration, with one year’s worth of increase under their own administration. Surprise! The rise in one year (3.4%) was less than that over three years (42%). For the record, the three blue years have seen an increase of over 11% compared with 42% in the last three red years, which I’d have thought was a good enough comparison itself that didn’t need to be spun into something bigger.

I also read that “it’s the Conservatives who are repairing, maintaining and restoring the parks, leisure centres and the Wyvern.” Hmm, would that also be the same Conservatives that halted restoration of Faringdon Road Park within months of taking over, when it was only half completed, and have proposed to close the Health Hydro?

In a break from some gardening, whilst searching to find what the candidates in the local election might have in their manifestos (because, with one exception, none of them have communicated with me), I came across a sitting councillor’s plans for saving the planet. Now I appreciate that, to borrow a phrase, ‘every little helps’ and that without the flashy headline nobody might have noticed it at all, but replacing paper copies of the local council newspaper with email, but only if everyone in a street agrees to do the same, is probably only going to save a few twigs, not the planet.

Anyway, the distributors are already being quite effective in saving the planet… I haven’t received a copy of Swindon News since August. I hope the council has spent wisely the 24 p it saved by not sending me the last three editions.

Yet another missive from he who does not know his name. This time it’s a letter from Derique in which he tells us Derique said “I’ve been extremely busy meeting and talking to local people”. Just like last time, I presume. Strange too that he writes about himself as if he was another person. Derique wants to know what local people think about these issues, and said that “I hope that people will take just a few short minutes of their time to complete my survey… and I look forward to hearing your views”. Well, if he actually bothered to knock on my door, rather than just shoving bits of paper through my letterbox, I’d take just a few short minutes and tell him.

Still, at least he is communicating. I’ve yet to hear or see anything from either of the other two main political parties.