For years Swindon has been a byword for Victorian pidgeon nests. Our 19th Century legacy has survived in all sorts of quiet corners around the town. For the most part, these brick edifices were as rundown and abandoned as their inhabitants. Yet as shabby as it was, it leant a certain character to the place. In recent years, I've wandered around the town taking photographs. The interesting patina of urban decay is simply wonderfully photogenic. The industrial archaeology alone is worth two gigabytes of disc space. It's made me such an interesting person they don't dare invite me to parties anymore.

Now what do I find? Every time I publish a photo of Grotty Swindon on the World Wide Web, it changes a year later to Demolished Swindon, soon to be replaced by Neat, New, Tidy Swindon. I photograph a property, put it in my 2009 Calendar (see Stuff, bottom right) and it gets demolished. I ask a security guard to photograph an old railway shed, and they pull it down. I photograph an old bus station office and half of it gets stolen. I snap a pic of a nightclub in an old building and someone sets fire to it.

Thanks to me, Swindon is becoming a redeveloped beautiful place to live. Even before I've been made Mayor I've made a difference. I hope the Council is taking notes here. I'm going to start taking photographs of people. Before long, I'll be dating a supermodel. Might get a bit messy in between though.

Pic of the Day

Whoops. Too late. It's been demolished. You need to be quick in Swindon these days.

Early Morning of the Week

I was woken during the night by an irate person whose opinion of someone was probably heard across Swindon. At any rate, I heard a dull metallic thud which sounded like a lager can being thrown against a car. I'll check my car for dents later today. Once he'd explained to his mates why he didn't like this person and faded into the distance, I dozed off again.

The music was loud. Very loud. It sounded like it came from across the yard, the same people who had that outdoors party once before. Surely this is breach of the peace? No point phoning the police though, they tell me they can't do anything, so I suppose I'd have to bludgeon someone to death before they turned up. I was well tempted. Luckily, so was someone else, and the music stopped. Zzzzzzz......