Okay, following on from the A to Z of Swindon and inspired by a leaflet picked up in the Thamesdown Transport travel shop I thought it might be cool to have a post about Swindon fun facts/did you know stuff. When I decided to start this blog I conceived a list of 10 things to celebrate about Swindon - some of it still work in progress.  So here is a random list, excluding the items on the leaflet, of 10 fab facts about Swindon - that and other images can be seen on my physical blog.

1) Swindon is home to some interesting and iconic buildings - featuring the Link centre, the Spectrum or Renault building and the David Murray John tower. The Spectrum building, designed by world renowned architect Norman Foster is now a listed building. It was also used in a James Bond film, a View to a Kill. As was the Motorola building. Read more about that on Swindon Web.

The David Murray John tower is on a list, compiled by architecture writer Jonathan Meades, of his top five extraordinary buildings. The tower was designed by Douglas Stephen, a Communist, who saw architecture as a power for social good.

2) Some of the work of Swindon-born writer Richard Jefferies was illustrated by non-other than E H. Shepard of Winnie the Pooh fame.

3) Swindon has a remarkable art collection in its Museum and Art gallery. It has a reputation of being one of the finest British 20th Century art collections outside London. The collection was established by local benefactor, H J P Bomford during 1944 from a donation of his works.

4) Kings of Leon played Swindon

5) Many well-known people either hail from or have connections with Swindon and there has to be another blog post there for sure - but just one of Swindon's famous offspring is Diana Dors, Swindon's own blonde bombshell. There's also XTC, Gilbert O'Sullivan, Desmond Morris and many,many more.

6) Swindon is home to a small but very perfectly formed Museum of Computing.

7) The green/living wall on Swindon's canal walk was one of the first of its kind in the country.

8) Swindon has been or still is, home to many surprising industries counting amongst them: Pressed Steel/Rover/BMW, Honda, Gerrard record decks and Spitfire planes. See Swindon Web and Swindon Heritage magazine for much, much more on much of that!

9) Swindon is blessed with a great deal of wonderful public art - much of which I have written about on this blog, especially the West Swindon Sculpture trail, and The Blondinis.

10) Virgin Airways famous red-lady emblem was created by Ken White, Swindon's home grown mural man and painter of industrial scenes.