Aquae Sulis

I passed through Swindon on a tour bus a few years ago, when we went from Oxford to Bath. It looked like what it is, a British version of the same sort of town I now live in. Imagine a patch of mold. Imagine that patch of mold on the wall next to a fine painting. The painting is a great city. The mold is a suburb.

The mold grows. It grows around the painting and threatens to choke the life out of it; and in its relentless self-replication it makes a quantum leap, mysteriously spawning a new patch of mold several feet away. This patch is not attached to any great painting and can grow and fester as it will. Though once a small town, it is now indistinguishable from any other suburb and in its inexorable rush to dominate the planet, spawns industries and other features of its very own twisted economy. It becomes a city, this patch of mold, and in its ghastly way, it thrives.

Infamous Megamultinational Corporation is one of many that have set up offices in Swindon, and I spent a day and a half within its hollowed walls doing those mysterious things that I do that net me an income. I was pleased to note that, though a patch of mold, Swindon compares well to Slough. While Slough is made up of rows of tiny houses of yellow brick, Swindon has many yellow brick houses lined up in rows. There are other differences. For instance, Swindon is pronounced “Swindon”, while Slough is pronounced “Slaaa-uhh”, using that endearing flat ‘a’ of southern England that sounds like a child who’s swallowed a marble.

My cohorts had never been to England and when we decided to give it up at noon, discussion ensued as to where to aim the navigation system in the rented Prius for the afternoon. We settled on Bath rather than Oxford. I’d been to both, but hadn’t a clue what to do in Oxford, whereas Bath has the very coolest Roman … thing … I’ve ever seen. It’s not a ruin. I don’t know what to call it. But Bath is cool, and so to Bath we went.

Just like last time, I was lost in reverence at how cool a place it must have been in its heyday: Temples, a natural hot spring greatly improved by Roman engineering, a prosperous town, people coming and going all the year. Of course, in those days the bar of coolness was not held very high. But it’s a great place today as well. It’s a university town and looks it, with young people going about, and shops galore, and a very pretty river. And just like last time, I had to rush through it, except instead of a tour bus waiting for me, we had paid for three hours’ parking and the meter was about to expire. So I guess this means: I still need to go back.