The music, the editing, the vibe; this introduction to Swindon title sequence from the 1990s has everything going for it.
Hailing from a time (now long since gone) where many medium sized towns had their own cable TV station, I don’t know how I stubbled across this Despite that, this 30 second clip has since become a video that I absolutely love and adore for all its total cheesiness. It lives in my head rent free.
Thinking ahead, I might feature this clip in another Swindon-related piece, or I might choose to feature it in every single thing I say and do from now on. As intros go, I think this is unashamedly low-budget and utter class. And now I have shared this delightful earworm with you as well.
What can I say? You’re welcome.
**
Could you spare a dollar to support me? Donate here!
Another one from deep within the MHAM draft posts that never made it to air…until now.
Back in 2021…
I was thinking to myself the other day “you know what? There aren’t enough podcasts in the world. And golly, there sure as heck aren’t enough opinions being shared around. I should do something to rectify this immediately!”
Or, alternatively, I saw an advert for the free podcasting creator, Anchor, and thought I’d give it a shot.
Several coffees later and some playing about with low-budget graphics and ta-da! A podcast was born:
(Before you say anything, I really cannot stress the low budget-ness of this production. Low budget in the sense there is none.)
Who knows what will become of this, but basically it’s me talking to myself for up to half an hour and in episode one I talk about what lead me to start writing a blog. If you enjoy the concept of a one-woman natter then you’re in for a right royal treat.
I honestly could not be selling this venture harder if I tried. It’s just something I’m giving a go at for a bit of fun.
Surprise, surprise, it didn’t catch on and after forcing myself through four recordings I stopped podcasting and went back to pure writing. I think as much as anything it was the realisation that podcasting with free software is difficult (in that I found the free to use software incredibly limiting and of overall poor production value).
I’m currently in the process of getting the original recordings saved (would you believe it, the platform appears to give podcast owners no access to downloading their own work once published).
For now, enjoy the bittersweet car crash that was the MHAM podcast and who knows, maybe I’ll revive it one day on better terms.
**
Could you spare a dollar to support me? Donate here!
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-February it struck me that I need a dose of culture.
I’d last visited Swindon’s art and artefact collection in Apsley House eight plus years ago. At the time I’d written about it within a list of things to do on a weekend morning. Years later, I published an article where I expressed my frustration at the closure of Swindon museum and art gallery.
External view of Museum and Art Swindon, which is located on the first floor
Museum and Art Swindon (M&AS) had cited its move from Apsley House in Old Town as being due to the pandemic, poor accessibility and spiralling costs to keep the listed building maintained. Some of the permanent exhibits were also becoming outdated, and the collection’s extensive catalogue of art was seeing minimal rotation.
Assuming you find the right building on Euclid Street, (I initially tried to open the door of the neighbouring building run by the police…), on the first floor you are welcomed by wide corridors and friendly staff in an area designated for the shop and permanent exhibitions. This space offers an introduction to M&AS, including its history and collection highlights.
Clarice Cliff Ceramics on display in Museum and Art Swindon (M&AS)
From the opening “Origins” exhibition in the centre, one wing focuses on the history of Swindon, the other features rotational exhibits. At the time of visiting there was only one exhibit available to walk around, titled “Un/common People.” This exhibit included physical objects, photos, paintings and a looped video to showcase a variety of perspectives to the region’s varied folk traditions. There was also a feature of the surreal “Hob-Nob”, a horse-like character that flanked the “Salisbury Giant” during annual processions. I haven’t looked at a biscuit in the same way since.
“Un/Common People: Folk Culture in Wessex” exhibition
The Salisbury “Hob-Nob”
The history Swindon wing has seen arguably the bigger transformation. While informative, the collections in Apsley House did have a reputation for being old-fashioned and stuffy, and felt very much like a product of the latter half of the twentieth century. It gave me a feeling of “here is a cabinet of fossils, what more do you want?”
This half of M&AS, which blends environmental and human history, is fresher and the tone of voice much more engaging. There is plenty to learn, for instance I had no idea that the first Stegosaur remains were discovered in Swindon, the bones of which have since been scooped up and are now displayed in the Natural History Museum in London.
Information board, detailing the discovery of “The Swindon Stegosaur”
Jump forward multiple rooms of human development, and visitors are carted to the near present day. A small display of Covid-19 information leaflets summarises recent events, alongside a request for donations to help develop the museum’s collection.
Photo of Swindon’s infamous “magic roundabout” shortly after it was opened in the 1970s
The way information was presented by curators and staff left me with the notion that Swindon’s rapid population growth has done little to fix the fundamental challenges that started appearing centuries ago. The two separate communities of “Old Town” and “New Town” have never really come together, contributing towards a lack of historic centre and, by association, the modern-day tongue-in-cheek reputation of this Wiltshire town. Whether that was the right message to take away or not, it certainly left an impression on me.
From a timeline of historical events occurring nationally and in Swindon town. Turns out Swindon has a few “claim to fames”
My overall thoughts on M&AS? A significant improvement on the previous exhibits at Apsley House and well worth an hour or two of anyone’s time (especially as it is free to enter). Would I make a special trip out to visit it? Probably not. There is no parking at the museum itself, and while there are plenty of council-owned carparks in the vicinity, you will be at the mercy of a pay and display. Museum and Art Swindon is also not the easiest name to remember, not when you consider it was called Swindon Museum and Art Gallery until 2021.
If I was a betting woman, I would put the rebrand down the council wanting to distance itself from its previous home at Apsley House and the highly vocal “Save Our Croc” campaign group. For those less familiar, in true Swindon fashion a stuffed gharial became a mascot and somewhat national treasure to the town, a permanent feature in Apsley House’s fossil room. From this 2023 report, it has been carefully restored, however it is unlikely to feature in the new museum due to its size. After decades of school visits and family trips, the croc was a cross-generational unifier, beyond politics, age or race. Entirely personal opinion, but I just don’t see that level of artefact connection happening with anything in the new M&AS. It is one of those stand-alone items that has so much history by simply existing. A stuffed gharial.
Anyway, after that tangent, we’ll move onto closing words.
M&AS isn’t the 2020 promise of a cultural quarter. Swindon’s residents will continue to dream of their town becoming, “an internationally recognised exemplar of sustainable, liveable development, [with] world class facilities for the arts and heritage.” However, M&AS does give Swindon something to be proud of and in the face of the jabs and jibes and the relegated gharials, I’d take that as a resounding win.
Museum and Art Swindon is open Tuesday – Saturday, 10:30 – 16:30.For more information, visit their website: https://www.museumartswindon.com/
**
Could you spare a dollar to support me? Donate here!
I don’t know if I’ve shared this before but even if I have I’m sharing it again.
This was in York Castle Museum, as part of an exhbit on exercise through the ages. Originally produced to highlight the importance of cycle safety, the whole overdramatization of scenario is hilariousand (even though I am the first to accept it does feminism no favours).
I was having a chat with someone at work the other day and it got me reminiscing about the first solo adventure I went on back in November 2018. Wow, three years has flown by! Since then I’ve been on three further solo trips and I can’t wait for normality to return once more so I can get back into exploring Europe without limitation.
I loved Bruges with all my heart, as much for what it did to me as much as its physical beauty.
One moment will forever stick in my mind. I’d taken it upon myself to visit a number of the churches in the North of the city, where very few tourists went. Alone in Sint-Walburgakerk church, an elderly volunteer, latching onto the excuse to perform, struck up the organ and began to play the most beautiful music. With every gentle note I started to reflect, thinking about all the things I’d accomplished in such a short space of time. I’d gone from being put down as the timid country mouse studying History and clearing wedding tables at 2am, to a smartly-dressed Financial Services professional, working in the City of London. And in a that I was there, in that church, travelling without anyone’s permission, approval or, indeed, moaning. I didn’t need to justify myself to anyone, not anymore. I was me.
In the same way I’d found myself silently weeping in Prague a year ago, over someone who’d rather sit in the hotel room 50 yards away than be with me, I was crying again. But this time something was different; the tears tracing down my hot flushed cheeks weren’t bitter, nor cold, they tasted sweet. In an empty church in Bruges, I was hit with a sudden burst of clarity. After all this time, I’d finally discovered what my heart had been missing all along. I was proud of myself.
Bruges was just incredible, second only to Arvon writing course (but then, to compare the two experiences would be like comparing chalk to cheese).
Most of you will have seen this already but hell, I’m sharing it again. Here is the Windows Movie Maker video I put together after I got back from my first solo city break to Bruges. Filmed on a (very) humble iPhone 5.
**
Enjoying this content? Please consider donating the price of a cup of coffee to my funding page:
Just back, having spent a week in the lovely city of Belfast (capital of Northern Ireland, UK).
I had a wonderful time visiting The Giants Causeway, drinking Guinness, admiring political murals, drinking my weight in coffee, absorbing the industrial significance of the Titanic…getting through a lot of local gins. It was a cultural whirlwind. Best of all, it was unbelievably sunny; it didn’t rain once!*
* – apart from the ten minutes it pelted it down, but at that point had just paid my entrance ticket to spend some time inside Belfast’s notorious Crumlin prison. (I swear I’m a normal human being deep down.)
Hopefully there will be a video coming up soonish (when I get a spare day to pull everything together), but in the meantime here are a selection of choice snaps from my staycation.
**
Please support unpaid writers, like me, by donating to my funding page:
Minding my own business on emails (aka clearing out my junk folder, because, you know, what else is there to do right now?)
Anyway, I was doing that when something on the side bar caught my eye. This, the side bar which is always filled by random advertisements. For example, I’ve been invited to take out over 50s life insurance for far too long…a product of my enjoyment of Classic FM perhaps; other times it’s linked to the websites I’ve been loitering on.
Amazon, eBay, that Scientology website I once browsed at stupid o’clock. Even if the targeted adverts are sometimes questionable, it’s rare I look at these and go “where the Hell did that come from?” I’ve yet to take out the insurance, and last time I checked I hadn’t joined a cult…I think…
Right, so, what’s the point of all this preamble, you say? Well, despite all of the above, one day I got this in the side bar:
No, that’s it. Nothing more below, save the rest of the boot-shoe.
I mean…what?
First off, how are any of these items linked? Hosiery/half a mannequin (I’ll be honest, I don’t know which it is), a balaclava and two types of shoe? It’s honestly the most mixed-up selection of clothing items one could buy, let alone for a lockdown fatkins like me.
Secondly, and probably the bigger question I should be asking, WHY AM I GETTING THIS?
I’m a lazy sod who hasn’t had a need for football boots since I played hockey for the school team in 2009. Plus, I couldn’t give a rat’s patootie what my rat’s patootie looks like. (I’ve just revisited that image, it looks like shapewear in the first thumbnail.)
Ain’t no shapewear containing this level of awesome!
Alright Kim…
So, the million cent question, did I click on the link to learn more, or possibly even purchase some of these dazzling products?
No.
Am I however now racing to go back through all my browsing history and clearing out the tracking cookies. It has lead me to wonder though, have I been hacked by the Scientologists?
I mean, it would certainly explain the randomness of items (can you understand a word he’s saying?)
Also, Tom Cruise.
(I think I’m going to like inserting this sound effect into my work very much.)
This post is dedicated to my lovely little sister, Bubba B.
It’s also dedicated to my old photo achieves I’ve been trawling through with zero regard to common decency. She let me take these photographs, she knew what she was signing herself up to five/six years later.
(At least that’s what my lawyers will say.)
*Cough* anyway, here we go.
My Sister, On…
My Sister, On…Contemporary Art
My Sister, On…Prehistory
(My Sister, On…World Domination of Prehistory)
My Sister, On…Geology
India On…Hipster Coffee
My Sister, On…Making Friends
My Sister, On…Interior Design
My Sister, On…Cultural Portrayals of the Female Body
My Sister, On…Wine Tasting
My Sister, On…Home Removals
My Sister, On…Interpretive Dance
My Sister, On…Travel
My Sister, On…Motivational Talks
(And finally – for now) My Sister, On…Questionable Photography
There you have it! Stay awesome, sister of the sea.
(PS, because no one is perfect…)
Alice On…Literature(?)
Yeah, I’ve no idea either.
(There may be an “Alice On…” sequel, or two, coming soon.)
**
Please support unpaid writers, like me, by donating to my funding page:
“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there” – L.P. Hartley
A year ago today, I returned from a London city break and published my first post. I’d spent a year living in the UK capital, so for me it marked a refresh of the best bits of city-living, including art galleries, theatre performances and catching up with old friends.
Days after my return I was left encumbered, battling a mystery illness. Those following weeks I pressed on the best I could, putting it down as another one of those viruses which circulate in densely populated environments. A year later I’m no closer knowing what struck me down; we all have our theories.
Back then, my friends and I had whimsically noted the high-adoption of face coverings being worn by the predominantly Asian tourist base. We mused on the foreign illness that was gripping other continents, but to comprehend the possibility that our own country could already be rife with disease was a step too far. We were better than that, we were British. Instead, we continued to pack ourselves into dense sweats to watch live music, feasted in noisy restaurants and embraced fondly.
If only we’d known.
So, with perhaps a naively romanticised view of what were truly the last days of normality (late January 2020), here are all four parts of London Recalling.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to everyone who reads MHAM. regardless of faith, 2020 has been a rough year for absolutely everyone, I wish you all a peaceful time with family and chocolate and Nicolas Cage.
(Things may be terrible, but now they’re terribly wonderful.)
Oh, here’s also a highly relatable photo I took of a shop window from three years back (I’m going to guess it was Ted Baker).
So go on, stuff your face with lobster too. You’re welcome again, have it on me (the enjoyment of the photo that is, I’m not a free-for-all lobster bar or anything).
I’ll be back with new content in the new year. In the meantime, there’s always my Contents of wonderful blog posts with plenty of material dating right back to 2014! (Alright, no need to roll your eyes.)
**
This isn’t a sponsored post. Support an unpaid writer like me by donating to my funding page: Buy Me A Coffee
My Housemate's a Mermaid 