I had a moment of hilarity this morning in reaction to the latest gumpty from the Swindon Development Company, wheeled out to breathe some spin into the next 'vibrant and exciting' stage of the regeneration of out now demolished town. Was he refering to an exciting new business premises? A two mile ditch that
actually joined to a canal network ? A final resultion of the 30 year shame of The Mechanics Institute? Nope. He was extoling the exciting new possibilities offered by the town's latest contribution to global warming and community spirit - the 35 square meter TV in the Wharf Green Square. This is the same square which has been ripped up and redeveloped three times in ten years - and which affords wondorous views of the empty covered market, the muilti-storey car park and the to-ings and fro-ings of the customers of McDonalds and Argos... It's also [irony bypass] the same Wharf Green which
won't feature either a canal or a wharf if the hare-brained canal project goes ahead...
Could anyone have conceived of a more appropriate symbol of our swindon culture than a 35 meter TV screen which will be on 24/7, 365 days of the year?! Its a temple to our Chavopolis - though to listen to our man this morning, you'd have thought that the thing would create some sort of sea-change. He actually said that, aside from the inevitable sport and music, it would feature (and I quote) 'cultural programming' - such as ballet and opera! How long the TV screen will continue to broadcast such delights to a swindon audience before having an airgun pellet or ball bearing smashed through it was left unclarified... Having realised that the one big draw of any certainty, the European cup, has fallen flat due to England's non qualification, it seems the screen promoters believe that its the Olympics which will have people 'flocking' to the screen. What I predict is a bunch of bored dads staring slack-jawed whilst their families shop - and glazed eyed youth in the queue for McDonalds. As for those community moments which 'bring people together to collectively experience cultural moments' (like the laughably suggested Last night At The Proms?!) - anyone with a single operating brain cell is going to remember that any shared experience is also going to be with the Kappa-suited hordes who've been topping up with lager and wkd round the corner in Fleet Street. That alone is going to make any such event the sort of 'shared community experience' that most people would run a mile to avoid - and very much more of an extension of the no-go area which our chavs have already made that part of town after dark. After-all, now they have everything they need; cheap booze, fast food - and now the cathode ray god. Why even go home of a summer's night?!
How on earth is this going to be policed? Its the place where every underage drinker will collect, where every discerning drunkard will chose to collapse on their backs, where every aggressive 16 year old baseball cap wearing wannabe hardman will hang-out, where every lout, beer boy, chav, and chavette on the way home will chose to wait for a taxi, where inumerable chip papers, drinks bottles and litter will be strewn. One thing's for certain, its a place where, after dark, a lot of law abiding people will prefer
not to be.
Who's paid for this permanent bill-board to the bbc?
Who'll pay for it when (not IF) it gets vandalised?
Who has considered the extra policing which it will require? How will that be funded?!
As we're constantly having environmental costs stuffed down our throats by the people who insist we pay for Home Information Packs, by government through punitive taxes on petrol, by councils who only collect rotting rubbish once a fortnight, what's athe carbon footprint of this 24/7 edifice to light entertainment?! What's its energy consumption - and who's paying for it?! Who's managing the environmental double standard?