My recent review on a local Tandoori restaurant gave burns hotter than their curries.
http://www.theswindonian.co.uk/24429/271585/a/girl-about-town-biplob-tandoori-old-town
Swindon
Five Minute Review: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
One classic novel, five modern minutes to write up its review…
Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy is a novel which depicts the relaxed pace of life in the countryside of 19th century England. It essentially tells the tale of three men from different backgrounds fighting for the love of one woman. You come to dislike them all to more or lesser degrees. Bathsheba (yes, that is her name) is a character with little warmth to her personality and, like all urban dwellers of the period, treats her rural tenants like dirt on her shoe. There’s Gabriel Oak, a hapless shepherd which following disaster finds himself working for the rich and snobbish Bathsheba. To say Oak is obsessed with Bathsheba would be a vast understatement. It’s no plot spoiler to say he proposes to Bathsheba and gets turned down within the first couple of chapters (keen much?). Then you’ve got the more maturely aged farmer Boldwood who, after receiving a wicked joke Valentine’s card, becomes infatuated with our female lead. Finally there’s Sergeant Troy, a passing army figure and notorious womaniser. Guess which one Bathsheba takes a shine to?
People often get doe eyed with the English rural landscapes depicted in this novel, but I don’t see it. To me this novel depicted country folk as a backwards breed who spend all their time rambling on and on about nothing at all. One of the few times I felt sympathy for Oak was when he was trying to get urgent help but had to contend with a bunch of idiotic drunkards in a pub. Who is going to give you money for booze if your mistress is dead Mr. Poorgrass, WHO?
Like a lot of literature from this period of writing, footnotes take dominance across most pages and the copy had religious and general ‘thing’ references which I imagine very few people would be able to understand two centuries later. I started off trying to read all the footnotes but quickly gave up when I found I was spending more time reading footnotes than I was when I was at university. Unfortunately it meant that supposedly hilarious jokes and witty comments made absolutely no sense.
If you’re a fan of Austen you’ll like this but Stephen King obsessives keep well away.
The Devil in Carb-ate
This evening I was reintroduced to a world of vice and nutritional sin. My old foe reared its ugly, cream filled, head and called to me from across the supermarket floor. Standing at the reduced bread stand I heard it whispering to me and made the fatal mistake of making eye contact. It was at that point my destiny for the evening was sealed. My poor body never stood a chance. The name of this dastardly snack? Custard creams.
A whole pack of custard creams now lay decimated on my bedroom floor, the empty wrapper and a string of pale crumbs serving as the only reminder that here once stood a tall stack of heavenly sin. The scrunched up wrapper of a product once fulfilled and bulging, now hollow and useless.
I dare not study the custard cream wrapper at length, the nutritional values which once seemed hidden from view now laugh at me in mockery, inspiring those inner feelings of guilt and shame. “You’ll remember this one moment of weakness for years to come!” it cackles. In frustration I reach out and grab the snack wrapper with such aggression that the orange skin lets out a rustling squeak. I thrust my hand into the bin and release my prisoner there to join the rotting carrot and greasy pizza boxes, before walking out of the room and switching off the light.
Wrapper dealt with I thought the guilt and ill feeling of consuming 50,00,000 calories in one sitting was removed from my life. I pick up a book and start reading in a bid to distract my mind. A little voice pipes up from deep inside me, it is coming from my stomach. It says “you thought you could dispel me so easily? You fool!” And the self loathing begins again.
The devil lives inside me and he is not red, nor is he a horned beast. He is a custard cream.
Girl About Town: 20 at The Kings
Alongside news outlet The Swindonian, I’ve started doing freelance work for the ‘what’s on’ website Total Swindon too. Check out my recent review on Swindon based restaurant, 20 at The Kings, here:
Nablopomo Day 25: Update on Living Arrangements
It has been a little while since I provided an updated on my living arrangements, so here is a quick summary.
Location: Still based in Swindon
Company: Still working for that same national organisation
Department: UPDATE – back in March I moved from the Commercial department to Marketing
House: Still living in 22 Starfish Road* (*not actual street name)
Housemates: Still living with Cherice and Becki the mermaid. UPDATE – I now also live with Amy who works at the head office of a high street newsagent firm, and Alex who, for whatever reason, can’t tell us where he works (we’re thinking Ministry of Defence or mafia boss)
Hobbies: Still managing the Swindon 18-30 group, hitting the gym, baking and (obviously) blogging. UPDATE – I now also write articles for a local online paper, The Swindonian
Transport: Still car-less. UPDATE – now much better at navigating the public bus system
In general: Still making the same mistakes and being wonderfully me. Classic Alice lives on.
Educating Alice (#EducatingAlice)
The day after my last blog post I walked into the office to get the standard review/critique from my number one fan, Steve (aka my boss). ‘It was good, but again Swindon is not mentioned. You haven’t mentioned all the good things that are here!’ ‘So, overall, B+ for effort?’ ‘Oh I wouldn’t go that far.’
So, here I am, writing ten things positive about Swindon. Because who doesn’t like pigs on hills?
1) There are nice coffee places
The team’s desire for me to write something positive about Swindon actually goes back weeks. Backtrack to the day after my post on when I visited my sister in Cardiff (http://wp.me/p5kuli-2I) and there was uproar among staff (well between Steve and homeware buyer Lucia which is as close to an uproar as we ever get). The pair of them, unknown to me, had been furiously texting the day before over the comment I made that Swindon doesn’t do nice coffee. A couple of hours into the working day and a calendar invite springs up in my inbox titled “#EducatingAlice” (yes, this is such a big deal a hashtag was created for it #SoCool #YouKnowYouveMadeItWhen).
Scroll forward a week and a chunk of the team took me out to coffee at Swindon’s Darkroom Espresso…
(Left to right: Steve, Lucia, Sarah, yours truly, Lorna, Catherine)
(On a side note, Steve pointed out that this was a very good photo of him and mumma Bennett commented that Lucia, Sarah, Lorna and Catherine looked really pretty/lovely. “Have you missed someone mum?” “Oh yes, Steve looks like a nice guy too.”)
Following this outing I now have to admit that Swindon does have at least one nice coffee shop within walking distance from home/work.
2) Swindon has the cheapest petrol in England
Headline says it all really. This information comes courtesy of Steve/the internet.
3) The name ‘Swindon’ is believed to derive from the Pig (swine) market that happened on the hill (don)
The tops of hills = wonderful views (= awesome) and pigs = bacon or babe (both of which are awesome).
4) Wagamamas is a five minute walk away
I do have a tendency to take things for granted. The super snazzy shopping outlet is one example of this. Today, a group of us went to Wagamamas for lunch as part of ‘Educating Alice’ which enabled me to experience the restaurant for the first time (although based on this it was really ‘Educating Alice, Lorna and Barbara’). Photo time…
(Left to right: Barbara, Lorna, Catherine, Helen, yours truly. All of us are in universal agreement that we’ve all looked better.)
Nice dining, and I got a pile of food left over for my dinner this evening (a combo of my, and Lorna’s, leftovers. You can take the girl out of University…).
Following this we trekked some 50 yards to get ice cream from the Thornton’s outlet shop. I have to admit that compared to my normal lunch of cheese sandwiches and a yoghurt (on a crazy day it’s chicken), today trumps them all.
5) My pottery course at the local college
Over the past few weeks I’ve really come to enjoy my Monday evenings thanks to the pottery course I’m enrolled in and, as of last Tuesday, I will be continuing next term also. It’s given me a chance to learn a new skill outside of work. Forget attractive men, I now spend my evenings looking at good-looking pots! (And there is something I never thought I’d say in my life).
I’m about the 8th week in and I’m still learning the ropes with different clay techniques. And while I have several items still in development and one success story (there will definitely be a post dedicated to that one), there have also been a fair share of failures. Week 2 coil pot will always have a piece of my heart. Week 2…
But, post firing (week 3)…
…
Tutor Belinda thought it was probably due to a trapped air bubble in the base which exploded in the kiln. Still, RIP coil pot, you will never be forgotten.
The people on the course are all friendly, and it’s just nice to be able to unwind and not think about anything. Plus there aren’t many places where if something goes wrong you can screw the clay up, throw it on the table and make something beautiful out of the mess.
6) The Magic Roundabout
Love it or loathe it, you have to acknowledge this piece of roundabout engineering:
7) It is easy to get to other places
I won’t dwell on this one as it has been extensively covered in a previous blog post: (http://wp.me/p5kuli-1V) but I have to admit it has been a big plus factor when I’ve wanted to explore places outside of Swindon or get home. There’s also lots of pretty Cotswold towns nearby. As a Cotswold girl myself that’s certainly no negative.
8) Urm, Swindon contains the word ‘win’…?
8.5) Potential team outing to Swindon’s indoor crazy golf course
(TBC, depends when Catherine gets round to planning it. I’m told it’s a must as part of #EducatingAlice. I’ll keep you posted on this one).
9) Thanks to an enthusiastic, active individual, Swindon now has a brilliant social group for young professionals
34 members and growing, with lots of events going on. I hear the person that created it has also sweet talked venues to providing drinks deals and pizza for free. She sounds like the kinda gal I’d like to be friends with. Find out more here:
(Look, if I can’t plug my own social group here where can I? #ShamlessPlug)
10) I live with friendly housemates and work with a crazy but loveable bunch of people who do random things like celebrate my birthday by wearing hats:
And you know what? I wouldn’t change them for any town, anywhere.
My Housemate’s a Mermaid: The Post you Came to this Blog for
Before you read this blog there are three things you should know about me. 1. I like tea and coffee. 2. I love my hats and dresses. 3. My housemate is a mermaid.
Yes, you heard right.
I live in a shared house located in the fine town of Swindon (Wiltshire, England). A town renowned for its stunning beauty, charming residents, and it’s thriving young professional social scene. Hah, who am I kidding? It’s none of those things. I’ve now been here almost six months and I’ve learnt just two things. We have this guy who writes his unique take on poetry on the pavement in the town centre (aka the resident ASBO burner), and we have trains. You can leave Swindon in any number of directions on a train and get to somewhere a bit more favourable in no time at all. Cardiff, Bath, Bristol, Oxford, London, all of which take no longer than an hour 15 minutes to get to by train. A town that makes it easy for you to leave. I like to think that if Swindon was a person he/she’d be a Psychologist’s dream patient, but alas it is not. It’s a rapidly expanding town with little of architectual significance other than this piece of road engineering known as ‘the magic roundabout’
Yes, that is indeed five mini roundabouts positioned around one central roundabout.
So, that’s a pit-stop guide to Swindon. Trust me, it’s all you’ll ever need or want to know about this place, well, unless you actually live here. In my opinion Swindon’s slogan should be ‘Visit Swindon: Because lets be honest, it could be worse’. Expecting a call from the tourist board to call any day now…
Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, my living arrangements. I live in a three storey shared house in Swindon. I live with four other people (making there five of us altogether), all living under the banner or pretence that we’re all ‘young professionals’. When it’s been a long day at the office it has become our thing to remind each other of this simple fact. It semi works. Four housemates to talk about and no time like the present, so lets get to it.
Becki – AKA the Shire Mermaid / Mermaid Aura
Who better to start with than the very person my blog’s title revolves around. The person who I have to thank for grabbing your attention, and adding some spice into my otherwise mundane life.
Becki works in CCTV for her day job, doing tough 12 hour shifts which are either 5am-5pm or 5pm-5am.
Job summary: monitoring CCTV cameras, providing security for buildings.
It’s a job which denies her any social life and tends to lend itself more towards a slow rather than fast pace, but it pays the bills and funds her real passion; the world of fantasy and mermaids.
When I moved into the house in August, Becki had two tails, few bikinis and a Mermaid Aura Facebook page. That was it. This winter she is currently working on building her mermaid profile, starting off by renaming herself to the Shire Mermaid. This is to reflect her well travelled background, but also to weave her way into the Lord of the Rings fandoms. I don’t know much about Lord of the Rings (yes, I know I deserve to be shunned) but the closest image I could find on google with the words ‘LOTR’ and ‘Mermaid’ was this:
That could easily be a movie poster/still for a LOTR film. I mean you tell me what’s out of place there?
I’ll pop links to her social media sites at the bottom of this post, but here’s a video of her doing a gig for a Cancer Research UK event:
So that’s Becki. She’s recently started investing more into mermaid accessories and an even better, personalised, silicone tail (her current tails are made of material). This tail from America is going to cost her something in the region of $3500. As I would say, that’s a lotta 11p noodles.
Stay tuned in the upcoming months for more information about my mermaid housemate, but for now, onto the next ‘young professional’…
Cherise – AKA the London Loather
Like me Cherise graduated from University in 2014 and like me she also moved to Swindon recently for the sake of a job. Cherice works at Nationwide head office.
Job summary: credit risk analyst for a high street bank, deciding whether or not to approve mortgage requests.
It kinda flies in the face of my university career-based rant in an earlier post, but Cherice’s job at Nationwide is a job on a graduate scheme. Her job will be secure for a year and after that who knows, she may stay at Nationwide, she may move on. Who knows.
What I do know is that she won’t be skipping back to her home city of London, she loathes the place. The traffic, the price of rent, the fact the 2010 London Riots took place just meters from her family house, there’s nothing about the city that grabs her, despite the fact it was the place she was born and raised. Given London is just over an hour away by train, you’d think she would stretch herself a little out of comfort zone and go here frequently. Nope. Ah, but I bet she studied at a London university I hear you say. No again, she went to Coventry University where she studied, wait for it, Maths (bet you weren’t expecting that).
As a fellow London hater with friends who dote on the city, I couldn’t believe my ears when Cherice told me this piece of information about herself. An instant bond was made and I saw that maybe there was hope in the world yet.
I think now is a good time to leave it here. Once again I have food in the oven, and I’ve underestimated how much there is to talk about. I have learnt something from writing this post mind and that is even Swindon can’t be summed up in one sentence. Maybe the Visit Swindon board really should get me involved with the 2015 tourist guide.
Anywho, keep your eyes open for the next post in which I’ll tell you all about my other two housemates and maybe a line or two (or three…) on yours truly. Until the next time, may your days be as light and fluffy as the jacket potato I’m about to eat.
Ps…
If you want to see more pictures/find out more about Becki, her Facebook page can be found here:
And her Twitter:
The Curious Incident of the Wheelie Bin in the Night-Time
My second post was intended to act as a fill-in from Graduation to the present day, however that’s going to wait. A scary development has occurred on our housing estate, something that should be treated with the utmost severity.
Our wheelie bin has disappeared.
(I’ll give you a minute to regain your breath).
Better? Ok, let me explain. I left the house to go to work, wheelie bin was there. I came back to the house after finishing work, said bin was still there. Go to bed, and the next morning, woah! The black, cuboidular (it’s not a word, but it should be), Swindon Borough Council wheelie bin was gone!
I don’t know who did it or why they did it, but I can only assume they are a criminal mastermind. I’ve walked up and down the street several times in the pitch black (in a mildly creepy way) and I’ve found no clues as to the whereabouts of no. 12’s wheelie bin. The whole situation has me baffled. I mean, why does anyone on a housing estate need a second wheelie bin when we have a designated area for rubbish bag overflow? Where can one subtly hide and store such an awkward, large object? Most importantly though, why our bin?!
It can only be described as the Swindon crime of November 2014. I don’t wish to scare monger, but I fear this problem will get worse before it gets better. Don’t fret though my fellow Swindonites, I’m on this. I’m composing a letter to send to Sherlock and I’ve been practising my fist shaking all day in preparation for the next attack.
To the bin-stealing culprit, return the bin and we shall speak no more of this. However, be warned, my housemate is a crime journalist. If you continue this charade I will nag him senseless until he reports on this. The deepest depths of hell do not compare to a page 15 paragraph in the Swindon Advertiser.
Now, many of you might say I’m taking this a little bit too seriously, that I need to calm down a bit. At the end of the day, I’m a middle class professional. I’m cool as a cucumber on most things. Loud music at 2am, not offering me tea when I visit, I’ll put up with that. Mess with my waste disposal though and you mess with me. You, me and my black belt in fist shaking.
So bring it in on my friend. Bring it on.
The Birth of the Grimgrad
On July 16th something monumental happened. The Ukrainian Government were continuing their struggle against pro-Russian rebels, and Ben Affleck had crashed a Superman-themed party. Neither though can compare to what was going on at the University of Southampton’s Highfield Campus in, oddly enough, Southampton.
At 10:45am I officially graduated from the university with a 2:1 BA (Hons) degree in History.
I walked out of the ceremony all smiles and compulsory posed photos…
However, while this development in my life story was happy and exciting, after 30 minutes the realisation of my new status started to sink in. Photos like this started to appear in the photo real:
(Mumma Bennett was not happy)
I was an actual adult now. An adult with debt to pay off, a job to find, a career to build, a life to make. All that debt and nothing to show for it but some fancy hired robes and making people call me Alice Bennett, BA.
Some say life begins at birth, others pin it on moving away from home, buying a car, or going to a club. They are all wrong. No, the start of one’s ‘life’ cannot be pinned on something we build ourselves up to. It is the sudden removal of a structure or support base that forces one to make their own choices without the help of friends or Google. That’s when our independence is finally marked and when ‘life’, as we know it, begins.
With the removal of my education the inner child was officially dead, but the adult was born. And with the birth of the new adult came the decision to create a blog three months later. Watch this space for more blog posts about my job, outside-of-work stuff, and everything else under the sun.
Hello there Mr. New World, are you ready for me?
My Housemate's a Mermaid 