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A cracking cafe

Several months ago a local TV news report about the redevelopment of Bracknell town centre included an interview with the owner of the bus station café who said the new shopping hub would be sure to boost his trade.

I thought then how sad that Mr Dennis Offer, owner of The Octagon Café at Swindon bus station would not be able to say the same thing since the redevelopment there entails his eatery’s demise. Now Mr. Offer has announced he is selling up due to the uncertainty over its future.

This is a very sad blow for Swindon’s catering provision. Under Mr Offer’s proprietorship The Octagon has been an outstanding venue of scrumptiously yummy tummy comforting. He is a master baker producing his own freshly baked edibles. The beautiful frothy milky coffee is a special feature of its service but the new owner apparently intends to replace its production with a common coffee machine presumably dispensing espresso etc like in most other cafes, another unfortunate loss.

The excellent chef serves delicious meals of which many are on the menu but this will be simplified, probably cut back. Bought in a bakery products will be sold and so the restaurant will lose its distinction as a purveyor of home baking.

The chef is also a brilliant baker and I am hoping that the new owners may employ his expertise in a greater capacity than previously and continue the fresh baking tradition.

The Octagon is unique in its handsome design, culinary beauty and splendid staff. I can only hope that Swindon Borough Council may amend their redevelopment plan and respect Mr Offer’s many years of sterling service to its customers by allowing it to remain in business. Mr Offer says in his notice of sale he would have continued the business under more positive circumstances. This being so, I hope he might open a new café in one of the many empty premises in Regent Street and provide more of his wonderful food for the wider public in the town centre. Many of the shops have plenty of space for a new catering venture and I’m sure it would flourish.

In a woeful, wearisome world enjoying one’s favourite food in one’s favourite eatery is a singular solace and a supreme joy and I hope in this case this will still be on offer.

Robert Murray, Ridge Nether Moor, Liden, Swindon

Condemn these attacks

In reply to K Kane’s letter SA 14th Aug ‘Satire is healthy’ in which he calls Boris Johnson’s Burka comments frivolous, I ask K Kane are you aware that since those insults to Muslim women were printed the abuse and attacks on any woman wearing a Niqab have increased? And whilst everybody is responsible for their own actions it’s noticeable that when these women were abused (one of them had a shopping trolley rammed at her) they being called letterbox.

Remind me K Kane, who used that phrase? I don’t know, but I’m quite sure he wouldn’t call attacks on innocent women who wears the niqab/burka by ignorant, pathetic bigots as frivolous, would he?

Condemn these attacks which have been brought on by Johnson’s comments.

Mark Webb, Old Town, Swindon

Not our problem

Re the ‘Refugees Welcome’ march through the town centre recently, ending up at the, surprise surprise, Islamic Centre.

Why are yet more marches planned? Has the Harbour Project Propaganda Team failed in its task of persuading us of how exhilarating the presence of yet more refugees can be?

Apparently some fled their country of origin with just the clothes on their backs. Questions: 1) If indeed ‘some fled just with the clothes on their backs,’ how did they manage to reach the UK without money? 2) Why travel across the whole of Europe to reach the UK, when other nearer countries would have helped?

Qatar and Saudi Arabia it appears do not want their Muslim ‘brothers’; why should we when we are already full up? This really isn’t a European problem.

Oh, nearly forgot - ‘the NHS depends heavily upon them’. (To quote one parrot on the march).

Prior to mass immigration the NHS seemed to have coped perfectly well.

Jeff Adams, Bloomsbury, Swindon

We must do it again

The report that the new Foreign Secretary has said that a ‘no-deal Brexit would be a big mistake for Europe’ reminds one of the old joke of ‘Fog in the Channel, Continent cut off’ if this attitude were not so depressing. It betrays a dangerous arrogance that Europe and the rest of the world ‘owes us a living’ and nothing can be further from the truth.

The 2016 referendum, as John Stooke has written, was advisory and not mandatory and certainly did not represent the ‘will of the people’ with only 37 per cent of the electorate in favour of leaving the EU.

A mandatory vote to make such a radical change in the status quo should have both a participation threshold and a requirement that a substantial majority of those voting wanted a change. The Leave campaign was based on lies and misinformation, funded by donations with suspicious Russian connections and has been declared illegal, so the case for a re-run is overwhelming.

At the end of the negotiations, whatever deal that may emerge will cause chaos while a no-deal Brexit will cause untold chaos, economic misery and mayhem.

Thus, the case for a second referendum becomes more and more inescapable with the choice being either a deal or no deal on one side and the sensible option to remain on the other.

Tony Mayer, Wheatlands, Haydon Wick, Swindon

Lacking credibility

I feel sure former Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Liz Webster is being slightly provocative when she claims that “with Brexit there has been no Parliamentary decision” (SA 17 August). Ms Webster will be more than aware that Parliament debated the Referendum Bill and passed it into Law by a substantial majority; Parliament also voted, after long debate, to put into effect Article 50, and to cap it all Parliament also debated and voted on the EU Withdrawal Bill. It is difficult to reconcile Ms Webster’s somewhat jaundiced view with reality.

I am not sure what Ms Webster means when she suggests the PM made the decision without due diligence (or indeed which PM she is referring to) but on the basis that the Government spent £9.3 million on a leaflet explaining the downsides of a vote to leave the EU based on what any reasonable person might call ‘due diligence’ I feel her statement lacks credibility.

We can all agree that the Electoral Commission determined that Vote Leave overspent its £7m election budget by less than one per cent.

However, Ms Webster is clutching at straws if she expects the electorate to believe that the ‘technical’ overspend was germane to the final vote.

I’m not sure of the relevance of the 2003 Iraq war ‘polls’ mentioned by Ms Webster – poll results are based on a small sample of voters and extrapolation, whereas the referendum was the largest single voter turnout with a decisive majority in favour of the UK leaving the EU – and to reaffirm what I have written many times, the decision was to leave the political construct and not to cut off all trading ties.

Des Morgan, Caraway Drive, Swindon

We’ve got a Tommy

In response to your article “Tommies will help town to remember”, may I point out that we do already have a Tommy in Swindon.

He was purchased by central Swindon North Parish Council and installed, on 5th May, in the garden of St Barnabas Church in view of the Gorse Hill crossroads, in the presence of parish councillors Des Moffat, James Yeoward and myself, the parish manager Andy Reeves and church warden Jennifer Rowe.

Whilst welcoming the installation at the war memorial, I feel the need to set the record straight.

Coun Steve Thompson, Norman Road, Swindon

Thanks a bunch

I would like to thank the person or persons who, between 11pm Thursday 16th August and 7.30 am Friday 17th August, was in collision with my wife’s car whilst it was parked outside our house in a cul-de-sac within the Sparcells area of Swindon.

Although the damage is not extensive and could have been a lot worse, it is still going cost me a minimum of £400 in insurance excess and premium increase plus the need to be off the road whilst it is being repaired.

Of course the person or persons did not leave any details and although it was dark, such is the damage they would know that they had hit something.

Looking at the position of the damage I would be surprised if it was made by a standard size vehicle, more like the size of a Transit or Ducato or a small truck.

The irony is that the noise of the collision woke my wife up but by the time she got to the window the vehicle was not in sight. Unfortunately she did not take note of the time as we had no idea that the noise was a result of the collision with our car.

So thanks for the consideration and the inconvenience you have caused me and my wife.

Name supplied, Sparcells, Swindon