My first clue to the importance of the day was spotting the library security guard. He's a portly chap, walking with a pronounced sway, sort of like an oversized chimp. He was carrying a bunch of flowers. Never in my life have I seen him look so incongruous. I couldn't help asking him if this was part of his usual duties. He chuckled, but I think what he really wanted to do was punch my lights out.

Later I went to the library for my daily dose of internet goodness. What is going on? The interior of the building was festooned with white balloons. Library staff in gothic and dickensian dress. Pretty normal day then? I asked one librarian, a woman whose normal seriousness was replaced by a bizzare black and white wig, what was going on? She smiled. Ye gods, she is a human being after all!

It seems the Library is a year old. I heard the Mayor of Swindon and his retinue making a speech downstairs followed by polite applause. Everyone else sat slack jawed as they played card games on their computer screens. How time flies when you're having fun.

Baby Fair

Walking through town yesterday afternoon I was noticed by a pair of young mothers and their ubiquitous baby buggies. One turned to the other and made a scornful comment amount my credibility as a sharp dressed man. Well, at least she was discrete about it, and in all honesty, I wasn't overly bothered. I've heard worse. Mind you, her bog standard unmarried-mother-of-one uniform could do with a makeover. So could her ridiculously crinkled offspring. Then again, the child was behaving itself.

A little further on a young girl, maybe five or six years old, lay on the pavement screaming purple-faced at her mother to pick her up, as her parent shook her head in amused non-compliance at her childs very explicit command. The little girl kept on screaming. I hope those tantrums get sorted because otherwise she is going to grow up an unbearably spoilt bossyboots. Like she is now, but driving a BMW to the schedule on her laptop.

It so happened I spotted an advert pasted on the plywood protection on abandoned shops. Baby Fair. This Friday. What on earth is that all about? Buggy races? Sponsored potty training? Screaming contests? Not that I'm worried. I won't be allowed entry on account of being more than two feet tall. Or is this fair something more commercial? I can imagine a dampened street, wooden racks with canvas shelters overhead, and lines of bemused infants making random limb movements. A grizzled old babymonger shouting his sales pitch to the passing throngs.

"Babies for sale! Get-cha babies here! Two and six a dozen! 'Owbout you Sir? Present for the missus. She'll love this bundle of fun. Quality babies... You can't get these at Harrads... Prices so low I'm almost givin' 'em away. And you madam? Come on, don't be shy..."

Cloudscape of the Week

From the second floor lounge of the library I get a good view over Regents Circus, a connecting road in central Swindon. Better still, there's little to impede the view of the sky. Today is another grey and indifferent vista of mediocre clouds hiding the sun, with the sky turned white by icy layers high above. Yesterday was completely different, one of those uncertain days of sunshine and showers. The sky was blue with a faded pastel grey layer, and tall bulges of cumulus lit in deep contrast by the late afternoon sun, and together with their dark ragged satellites drifted menacingly by. A bright rainbow arched across in front of the scene. It was genuinely beautiful to see.