Yesterday afternoon I made my way home through that familiar alleyway that riuns along the old college site. It is something of a rubbish tip, a place for personal drug deals, and even sometimes the odd bonfire or two. The discarded clothes, rotting wood, rusty springs, smashed plastic shells of consumer electronics, incomplete graffiti, and broken bottles and stones are something I've wearily become used to. As I leaned forward to avoid the ever-increasing expanse of foliage, the troughs dug by urban wildlife to get under fences, it was with something of mixed emotions that I realised it was coming to an end.

The old college is due to be finally demolished in autumn. A new shopping mall is to replace it. I'd spotted the display in the library foyer and wondered what all those 'suits' were doing, milling around in even-pitched conversation. So when I'd finished adding the previous blog entry I went across and began enquiring about the plans on public view.

The old development was a glass tower farago, hopelessly awful, but this new one was much more understated. I found it hard to fault. The news that the top of three level car park would still beneath the yard outside my home was a pleasant suprise. This was a development intended to fit in, rather than dominate the skyline, and I approve. I also notice that some of my comments reached the pages of this mornings local paper. That's the trouble with speaking out... You never know who's listening...

But back to the alleyway. In the new scheme it will no longer be a dark haven of urban squalor, but the edge of an open space. Paved, lit, brought into the 21st century kicking and screaming. The trouble is the developers can't find out who owns it.

End Of A Politicians Image

Also in the pages of the local paper is the news that our Prime Minister, the ever-clumsy Gordon Brown, has been to Swindon and has spoken of its importance in the coming economic recovery. Recent events do make you wonder what he said when he got back inside his limmo to go elsewhere in swift scheduled progress. We have immigrants here too.