Tunnel Vision
On Bank Holiday Saturday, Winchester Tourist Guides will be giving residents and visitors an opportunity to visit the disused railway tunnel under St.Giles Hill, which is not normally open to the public. There will be three tours at 11am, 1pm and 3pm, all starting from the Winchester Tourist Information Centre in the Broadway.
The railway tunnel was part of the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway which was Great Western Railway’s attempt in the nineteenth to create a line direct to the Southampton Docks in competition to Southern Railway. GWR gave Winchester its second station where St Giles Multi Storey Car Park now stands. The line was very important for the deployment of troops during the D-Day period in 1944. The tours will tell the story of the station, the tunnel and the rivalry between the railway companies.
Tickets for the Chesil Tunnel Tours cost £4 for adults and £1 for children. Children must be accompanied by an adult. As these particular tours are very popular, it is most advisable that they are booked in advance from the Winchester Tourist Information Centre in the Guildhall. People are advised to wear comfortable shoes and, although the tunnel is lit, bringing a torch could be useful. For further information telephone 01962 840500 or email tourism@winchester.gov.uk. A free leaflet outlining the many walks that the Tourist Guides lead is also available from the TIC and information can also be got from Winchester Tourism’s website, www.visitwinchester.co.uk

A Walk On The Cheap Side
Festival Place was preparing for an influx of fashion-conscious bargain hunters as retail giant TK Maxx opened its brand new store yesterday.
Queues of shoppers attended the opening of the 36,000 sq ft store, situated on the centre’s upper level.  Famed for bringing ‘brands for less’ to its savvy customers, the new TK Maxx offers Festival Place shoppers an extensive range of designer must-haves; with 50,000 items across womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, homeware and gifts, at up to 60% off recommended retail prices.
Neil Wilson, Festival Place centre director, commented: ‘TK Maxx is an exciting, fast-paced retailer, which will be a welcome addition to
Festival Place.  The arrival of the new store has been eagerly anticipated throughout the centre and we are expecting the opening to prove extremely popular with our visitors.’
TK Maxx, said: ‘The new Basingstoke store is part of our opening programme in 2006, and we are thrilled to be bringing our unique brands for less concept to Festival Place shoppers.’

‘The rain it raineth every day’...
...warbled the Bard, but no it doesn’t. Just the one day. Our day. Following weeks of sunshine, on the day of the very first Summersound (22/7/06), the heavens opened and down it came. Within minutes our 36 tonnes of sand covering the car park turned into a soggy mud flat. So says Rob Hollamby. 
The Tower Arts Centre has always been renowned as an excellent local venue for the less mainstream varieties of theatre, folk, blues, rock music and othe stuff. So it’s nice to see The Tower diversifying by putting on an elaborate event such as Summersound 2006. Much sand, an inflatable domed stage (looking the business thanks to Tower technicians Alastair Hamilton and Adam Morris, as well as the two Scotts at Avenue Audio), graffiti art being made as the bands play by Keziah Hoffman, two giant hangings created by Jack the Dripper style artist Stephen Clarke and 14 bands of varying ages playing from 12noon thru to 8pm, this is easily the most ambitious project Tower Head Honcho John Tellett, aided and abetted by Anita Rogers and Joanna Roberts, has undertaken.  
The weather, as is always the way when we Brits try to throw some sort of outdoor bash, seems to be doing its best to stop the whole thing going ahead. The sky had been growing progressively darker all morning, and when MC Mervyn Stutter introduces openers Afrosnatchers the first few drops begin to fall. Fortunately, by the second song, the funky and aptly titled Sunshine Avenue, cracks in the clouds have appeared and it’s all starting to look OK again. However, by the end of second act, the all female (and astoundingly talented, considering their average age of 13) Sweet Chaos, we find we have a storm of tropical proportions on our hands. So everyone, bar the heroic techies, who have to battle the elements to save their equipment from going to that big stadium in the sky, pile inside The Tower. The atmosphere is surprisingly, wonderfully, still cheerful – we are treated to indoor unplugged sets from Tom Moody, 3 Kings, The Ashbies and impromptu assorted alliances of band members, comic clowning from Jonathan the Jester, all in all a demonstration of true British grit that plasters a smile over the sourest, most soaking of faces. We’ll pull through. It’s only rain dammit.  
At around 3.15pm, the rain gradually stops and Tower staff and volunteers from the HCC Youth Services’ Winfest youth music organisation begin digging channels in the sodden sand. The PA and amplifiers are thankfully unharmed, and as quickly as possible acoustic duo Richard and Sarah aka Gracie make it onto the stage, playing a delicate, heartwarming set, driven as much by soft guitar picking as by gorgeous vocal melodies.  
The Moho tear into a set of keyboardy new wave, that, whilst probably a little too derivative of the eighties pop revival scene that’s so popular at the moment, leaves plenty of room for innovation, especially when considering their tender years. Citizen play exuberant pop-rock that doesn’t rely one bit on overly affected cool, simply good tunes and a lot of guitar, which makes a change these days. 
Stem Project are not quite everyone’s musical preference, letting loose a set of dark electronica that, whilst enthralling to some musical enthusiasts, doesn’t sit too well with more casual viewers. Scarlet Soho pick things back up (if it’s at all fair to say it went down) by playing their ever-tight brand of electro guitar pop, and previewing new material, which sounds as good as ever. The Bullycats then maintain the high with a hard rockin’ set of songs reminiscent of the Black Crowes, paving the way for Summersound closers The Hip Hop Farmers, who show that rap isn’t all about bling bling and misogyny with a comedy parody of Eminem’s Stan, hilariously retitled Nissan. As the ever-elusive sun begins to set behind the water tower, its warm glow mirrors the mood of the crowd. It’s safe to say that, today, The Tower staff and all those who volunteered or played embodied that old maxim of theatre – ‘The show must go on’. And so it did.