About Us
“Why is it called the Ocelot, then?” we are often asked, “Is it a homage to the big cats occasionally found around the South West? Is it a Salvador Dali reference? Are you just being ostentatiously and garrulously verbose?’
‘No’, we proudly reply, ‘it’s because it’s a funny sounding word’.
That may sound like we haven’t put much thought into it but, au contraire – we tried many names before deciding on Ocelot, the worst of which probably being The Wiltshire Pangolin, something which we regret only for denying us the use of the slogan ‘p..p..pick up a Pangolin’. Anyway, The Wiltshire Ocelot was started in summer 2006 by enemy of local gyms and friend of local bakeries, Jamie Hill.
The Way We Was
Then serving as the chief news reporter at the Swindon Advertiser Jamie decided that he’d done enough pointless stories about cats stuck in trees and secret government microchips in wheelie bins and wanted to do something radically different. Together with a former colleague (Dave), and later, a former bag salesman also called Dave, which was to save a small fortune on business cards - they set about creating something that would revitalise the local press, and provide the people of Swindon with something a little more fun than reading about the latest campaign to lock everyone up. After all, there’s plenty to celebrate - Swindon is a town blessed with a low crime rate, high employment levels (Nationwide, Motorola, Honda all being based here), a vibrant music and arts scene and the most entertaining set of roundabouts you could ever hope to see!
Word soon spread and the Ocelot grew in popularity. We started to host local band nights, comedy nights, chilli cook offs and all sorts. People were flying in especially from LA just to perform for us (well, ok… once) and it seemed like the Ocelot would go on to achieve sainthood much quicker than anybody expected. Magazine stars such as Agony Boy and Bane ‘drive-by’ Bullet took on the issues that counted, whilst the comprehensive listings and guide section served to unite what was until then a promising, but ultimately fragmented, music and live entertainment scene. The Ocelot continued to grow, taking on more employees, until we were suddenly equipped with our own sales team, professional designers, dedicated distribution team a small army of local reviewers and also some cool pens with our names written on them.
Magna Carta
However, during a trip to Salisbury it suddenly dawned on team Ocelot that down here they were itching for some sort of magazine to save them from their own dire local press, which as we all know performs an important duty in encouraging us to be irrationally scared of, well, just about everything – and the idea to expand the Ocelot was born. Until then, the good people of Salisbury had to make do with something called the Magna Carta, which isn’t even that funny. Salisbury took to the magazine like a bald man to an upside-down barber’s shop and it wasn’t long before we liberated the good people of Warminster, Trowbridge, Bradford-on-avon, Westbury and, of course, Upton Scudamore with our out of focus pictures and badly-written jokes.
The Wiltshire Ocelot can now be picked up, for free, at over 700 targetted venues throughout the county – everywhere from pubs to restaurants, from cinemas to colleges and theatres to record shops. We now boast a readership in excess of 20,000 and are expanding all the time. We receive positive feedback wherever we go, have a heavily-involved readership covering the whole county - we’ve even had beers made in our honour! People are constantly telling us how different we are, and we’re 90% certain they’re talking about the magazine.
So thanks for that
Team Ocelot x
‘No’, we proudly reply, ‘it’s because it’s a funny sounding word’.
That may sound like we haven’t put much thought into it but, au contraire – we tried many names before deciding on Ocelot, the worst of which probably being The Wiltshire Pangolin, something which we regret only for denying us the use of the slogan ‘p..p..pick up a Pangolin’. Anyway, The Wiltshire Ocelot was started in summer 2006 by enemy of local gyms and friend of local bakeries, Jamie Hill.
The Way We Was
Then serving as the chief news reporter at the Swindon Advertiser Jamie decided that he’d done enough pointless stories about cats stuck in trees and secret government microchips in wheelie bins and wanted to do something radically different. Together with a former colleague (Dave), and later, a former bag salesman also called Dave, which was to save a small fortune on business cards - they set about creating something that would revitalise the local press, and provide the people of Swindon with something a little more fun than reading about the latest campaign to lock everyone up. After all, there’s plenty to celebrate - Swindon is a town blessed with a low crime rate, high employment levels (Nationwide, Motorola, Honda all being based here), a vibrant music and arts scene and the most entertaining set of roundabouts you could ever hope to see!
Word soon spread and the Ocelot grew in popularity. We started to host local band nights, comedy nights, chilli cook offs and all sorts. People were flying in especially from LA just to perform for us (well, ok… once) and it seemed like the Ocelot would go on to achieve sainthood much quicker than anybody expected. Magazine stars such as Agony Boy and Bane ‘drive-by’ Bullet took on the issues that counted, whilst the comprehensive listings and guide section served to unite what was until then a promising, but ultimately fragmented, music and live entertainment scene. The Ocelot continued to grow, taking on more employees, until we were suddenly equipped with our own sales team, professional designers, dedicated distribution team a small army of local reviewers and also some cool pens with our names written on them.
Magna Carta
However, during a trip to Salisbury it suddenly dawned on team Ocelot that down here they were itching for some sort of magazine to save them from their own dire local press, which as we all know performs an important duty in encouraging us to be irrationally scared of, well, just about everything – and the idea to expand the Ocelot was born. Until then, the good people of Salisbury had to make do with something called the Magna Carta, which isn’t even that funny. Salisbury took to the magazine like a bald man to an upside-down barber’s shop and it wasn’t long before we liberated the good people of Warminster, Trowbridge, Bradford-on-avon, Westbury and, of course, Upton Scudamore with our out of focus pictures and badly-written jokes.
The Wiltshire Ocelot can now be picked up, for free, at over 700 targetted venues throughout the county – everywhere from pubs to restaurants, from cinemas to colleges and theatres to record shops. We now boast a readership in excess of 20,000 and are expanding all the time. We receive positive feedback wherever we go, have a heavily-involved readership covering the whole county - we’ve even had beers made in our honour! People are constantly telling us how different we are, and we’re 90% certain they’re talking about the magazine.
So thanks for that
Team Ocelot x
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