Ring-a-Ring-a-Roundabout

Bec had an interview in Swindon today and I thought I'd make myself useful by driving her in, then finding a supermarket and doing the weekly shop while she got grilled. Swindon is not a particularly nice place - especially compared to Bath - it's one of those concrete jungles with a ring-road arrangement that tries to get you smoothly around the edges of the jungle without having to see too much of it.

I figured I could orbit Swindon, starting from Bec's interview point, until I found a shopping centre or big supermarket, and then either complete one full circuit or double-back, whichever was shorter. Unfortunately the ring-road is very tricky to follow. It's schizophrenic, randomly calling itself either Ring Road, A4289, B4289 or sometimes, enigmatically just [R]. If this isn't enough, it twists and turns, sometimes even folding back on itself, to the extent that sometimes you think you're on it, when suddenly you find yourself driving over it at an intersection!

The Swindon Ring Road needs a big blue line or something down the middle of the lane that goes clockwise, and a big red line along the anticlockwise path. Actually if they did that they might find that it's not really a ring at all. More of a series of overlapping lines, like a bowl of spaghetti. They might lose the guys doing the blue and red lines. Or more likely, every road in Swindon would end up having both red and blue lines in each direction!

Despite the Ring Road, I manage to find a supermarket and get the shopping done. Back into Beatrice, and I try to regain the ring road and get back on time. When I finally locate it, I realise I have no idea which way around I'm going. And then Bec rings - she's all done.
It's getting dark, the traffic's getting heavy, I'm lost, running late, and come across this sign:
Yes, I'd stumbled onto the UK's (and thus probably the world's) most complicated roundabout. And it was pretty clogged with people keen to get home.

It took about half a second for the memories of amusing forwarded emails to make their way from long-term storage into the "action stations" area of my brain. There was a small side-street off to my right - one last escape route before I was dragged into the whirlpool.
Mirror-Indicate-Brake-Clutch-Shift-Blip-Shift-Clutch-Turn-Relaaaax.

The Magic Roundabout actually ended up being my saviour, because the U-turn that I did to avoid it ended up leading me back to Bec. But still - it's not really what you want to come across without being prepared. Brown underpants would be a good start...