Swindon twinned with Disney World

I promised myself that I wouldn't renew hostilities with Swindon and that I was very much done with my animosity towards the town.

I didn't lie. I've come to realise that Swindon is just as mediocre as a whole host of other towns and cities in the UK. I have to say that my attack was both grossly generalised and quite offensive and for that I apologise. You can make broad, sweeping comments like the ones in the article and they'll always represent a small portion of a community - and those people do exist in Swindon - but to claim a town of a quarter of a million people are like it is just flat out wrong.

However, while Swindon is just as lacking in things to do as a whole raft of other towns, I just got a little pissed off due to the number of public officials who stood up and insisted that this wasn't the case. The facilities in Swindon sucked at the time - the Oasis was outdated, the Link Centre burned your eyes just walking in the door due to the vast amounts of chlorine used and, well, no one ever really mentions a whole lot else. There's a bowling alley, a couple of cinemas and a nearly-bankrupt football team. Otherwise, you can go shopping and drive around a multitude of roundabouts. To quote the Internet: "epic win ".

Again, none of this really singles Swindon out.

What does single Swindon out is that they've now been twinned with Disney World in Orlando. I shit you not.

I'm not quite sure what to make of the partnership: an ever-expanding, commercial, poorly-managed venture that has its glory days firmly fixed in its past is being twinned with an ever-expanding, commercial, poorly-managed town that has its glory days firmly fixed in its past. Seems quite apt to me! No wonder the Disney World judges didn't even need to visit the place. I'm sure they just used Wikipedia!

Oddly enough, there is every chance I might be heading to Disney World in Orlando next year - not really through choice but through other forms of persuasion - and could get to see the Swindon exhibit at Epcot. I'm especially excited because it is "not known what it will contain". Roundabouts? Shops? A slight nod to a steam engine? A signed Jan Åge Fjørtoft Swindon Town F.C. jersey? A long diatribe about how good the Link Centre and the Oasis are?

I wait with baited breath!

Seriously though, I hope something good does come of the pairing. I can't see what Disney World will get from it but if it helps raise the profile of Swindon a little bit and bring it out of naff mediocrity then all power to it.