Kelty, Fife
I was telling a guy i met in Glasgow that's where i was from (well, the town next to - close enough) And he told me about a time his football bus broke down in that particular village. So they thought they'd nip into the nearest pub for a pint. Things seemed fine right up until an axe fight broke out. And when they asked the barman if there was another pub near by he replied with curious line' 'aye, but it's a wee bit rough'.

fair fuck to him. Turns out it was one of my friends uncles who got axed in the face. Not the only axe fight story I've heard.

the town along the road lochgelly had the lowest house prices in Britain for 6 years up until recently.

My hometown of cowdenbeath was the setting place for irvine welsh's last novella.

inner Fife is one massive shit hole really.
( null and void, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 13:00, Reply)

*clears throat*
Margate.
Home town, every now and again there's a shabby attempt to capture its former glory as a seaside town.
Ignoring the fact that it's a scum-infested shithole with less character than a Tesco Value ready meal.

West Bromwich.
*shudder*

Borth.
West Bromwich-on-sea, or more clearly, caravan park in a swamp.

Coventry.
Hint: never go there thinking 'well surely it can't be THAT bad.'

Hook.
Yet to discover the point of this place.

Newcastle.
Not a bad place in itself, just totally wasted on the Geordies.

Having been to all of these places in my young life, I'm glad I can still recognize there is some beauty in the UK.

Just surrounded by utter toss.
(Chaos_Theory makes epic electro, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:48, 1 reply)

Godalming
All you people complaining about life in the inner cities should realise that Surrey has its fair share of problems!

I'm from Godalming. I remember someone once discovered a pothole in the road outside Waitrose, and the council didn't repair it for over three hours.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:47, 2 replies)

Basildon
The only local entertainment is the Fountain Leisure Park, consisting of a cinema, a crappy 'nite-spot' [sic] and chain restaurants.

Known locally - without a shadow of irony - as BasVegas.

Working there was the worst 3 months of my professional life.
(MartinB9999, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:17, 4 replies)

Lewisham & Armley
ARMLEY - I once walked down here after eating some wacky mushrooms and had to move into the middle of the road. One of my friends immediately guessed 'are you standing there so that you dont visibly laugh at the Armley people'. It's like a cross between The Hills Have Eyes and Jerry Springer. I lived in a converted youth offenders institute, on a road named after prostitutes, and our windows were smashed about twice a week by kids. Like actual children between the ages of about 2 and 7. I also had the honour of being told by a toddler that I was the second sexiest girl to live in my building. There was also a brothel, two of the guys I lived with used to bring hookers back who looked like gnarly old trees (we were in student halls but the owner had moved 2 weird drug dealers in as not enough people were stupid enough to live there). The claim to fame was that Armley was home to the original Mikes Carpets - yes fame indeed - apparently there was an advert for it on TV.

LEWISHAM - most people who dont live in Lewisham are scared to come here. It's pretty much what Brixton is assumed to be (by people who do not know Brixton). People who do live there think it stinks of fried chicken.

I have noticed that people have mentioned someone getting stabbed etc so have branched out to the more 'Lewishamy' part of Greenwich - I went to the same school as Richard Reed the shoe bomber and the guy who shopped the NF. The pilots from 9/11 were taught how to fly by people who lived on the estate my school was in. Down the road Damiola Taylor and Stephen Lawrence were both murdered. Those are just a few famous cases I can think of off the top of my head.

A ruddy bad effort I know but it is a crying shame that neither of these towns seem to have been mentioned yet.
(ignoramusaurus, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:09, 7 replies)

Terrible, terrible place...
Birkenhead, anyone who has visited will attest to the shitness that is Birkenhead.

That is all.
(Bored In Work, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:08, 2 replies)

Talking about shit towns...
Sorry to be serious for a moment, but did you see that Alison Moyet was in a severe car crash?

She is in a bad way.

She's in hospital now.

But when they found her, she was covered in blood.

They asked her where she was bleeding from.

She said 'Bleeding Basildon, mate'
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:47, Reply)

All these people…all these places…

This QotW has been filled with people telling us about their miserable existences in the pitiful cack-holes where they live.

Could this be one competition where the winner is actually the biggest loser?
(Mr Twisty Cheeky The worst kept secret in B3ta..., Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:24, 5 replies)

I periodically spend time in a place so rough you wouldn't believe.
The locals are split, broadly, into 3 or 4 warring groups, and I kid you not, barely an hour can pass without a small intifada being declared.

Newcomers are chased away as if they were the spawn of satan, and there's a hundred by-laws which are used to beat them over the head.

There's been very little regeneration work for years, so it's a bit like stepping back in a time-warp.

Still, on the plus side, I mostly hang out on "links" which is a bit friendlier.
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:21, Reply)

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy”...

...How prophetic Obi Wan was when he mentioned those immortal words.

Only problem is...he was talking bollocks…cos I managed to find one. It wasn't difficult as it goes - I was born there.

There is an area sooo repugnant and despicable that the mere mention of it makes you want to drizzle half a gallon of mind bleach liberally over a pair of rusty garden shears, before ramming said shears into your own colon via the left eye socket of the person standing next to you.

When this QotW came out, young Spankyhanky and I had a quick word. Once we’d dispensed with sending each other sex-texts, we got down to the business of which one of us should enlighten you all on this scab-on-the-boil-on-the-hemorrhoid-on-the-dog’s-arse of this once green and pleasant land…the place that I call ‘home’, and he calls – ‘the shit-tip he managed to escape from…’.

We tossed for it (of course). I lost – Nobody wins a tossing competition with Spanky.

So here we go – are you sitting comfortably?

*opens bible*

On the eighth day, God was proudly recovering from his lazy day off and watching whatever was the equivilent of 'Monday Night Football' back then. He then took a moment to glance down upon his wonderous creation of rapturous beauty and immense potential, and he was about to congratulate himself for the umpteenth time…when he spotted something amiss...

“Hang on…this can’t be right” thought the beardy one (and I don't mean Noel Edmonds) – “Oh buggeration!", exclaimed God: "I’ve proper fucked up here - big-stylie fashion!”.

And lo, he was right – he’d missed a spot – there was a whacking great hole in the middle of one of the smaller land masses.

“Well…” thought the omnnipresent old mighty gonad-ed one. “I’ve got to sort out this arse-up pronto or I’ll be right for the fucking high jump”, and he delved around in his pockets and looked behind the fridge for any spare material that he could use to fill the hole.

But nay-eth – there was none.

Just then, God felt a stirring in his holy crap factory, caused by the satanic return of the once-blessed Bhiriani he had quaffed with one-too-many lagers the night before...and he had an idea

“Ah well – this’ll have to do” quoth God, and he dropped his trollies, squatted over the Earth and curled out a mahoosive quantity of unholy dumpage posessing the kind of girth and pure stink that is only capable of being produced from the speckled gravel patch of the almighty himself.

Then he stomped on it a bit…had a slash, and went back to watch the Monster truck rally – satisfied with a ‘jobbie well done’...

The putrified lump he had left behind however, was allowed to fester and worsen, until some cock-end eventually wandered onto it and decided to plant a tree slap-bang in the middle of the steaming mess.

That man's name was ‘Cofa’* – the surrounding area was then named after it - ‘Cofa’s Tree’.

Slowly over time, the name evolved into…


coventry.

Not even deserving of a capital letter.

And here we are. Anyone spending more than half an hour in this godforsaken wasteland of wankers and wanton wobblebottoms would think that the Nazis had the right idea when they tried ‘doing an Alderaan’ on it during WW2.

Some little towns can be boring or under-funded – at least they can be called ‘quaint’ or some shite like that…Some of the ‘big’ cities can boast Economic growth, cultural diversity and modern thinking. Cov has none of those attributes – only excuses. It’s a monstrosity, a segregated concrete junkpile of shame and ineptitude – jam-packed up to the heaving rafters with the lowest fuckwitted shit-biscuits imaginable to humankind.

You know what you get when you drive into town? on the signposts it says:

‘Welcome to Coventry – the city in Shakespeare’s county’

Yep – that’s all we’ve got. The whole city – over countless generations and hundreds of years of possible achievements – the best thing we can proclaim is that it’s QUITE near to Stratford, somewhere that around 400 CUNTING YEARS AGO was the birthplace of some ruff-wearing batty boy who is more famous nowadays for boring the dirtboxes off our poor schoolkids than for actually acheiving any cultural inspiration.

But never mind about that - he was born near us…so yay! Put up a fucking SIGN!

If there was any justice, the sign would read. ‘Welcome to Coventry – for Fuck’s sake…KEEP DRIVING! IT’S THE PEDAL ON THE RIGHT…GO GO GO!!!’

I love Geordies, Scousers, Cockneys, even Brummies. Don’t get me wrong – All of those people’s hometowns are fucking dumps too in my experience – but I’m jealous of the way they feel for their cities.…it’s THEIR dump, and the pride they show in those far superior cities personifies a lot about what is great and good about this country.

What the sychronised-swimming spazfuck have we got to be proud of in Cov?

Industry? - We used to be one of the engineering and car industry capitals of the world…now we’re lucky if we can find a petrol station that hasn’t been ram-raided. Most of our former glorious manufacturing heritage has either been demolished...or is currently on fire.

Nightlife? – You’re lucky if you live through the night more like. If the bottle-toting Neanderthals don’t get you then the STDs will – distributed with faux gusto round by the bins at the back of the local shiteclubs by a clap-ravaged trollope called ‘Cherrii’ (The bad spelling in this case is not a typo.).

Picturesque-ness? - Oh dear me. I sped drove through town only yesterday and I’ve seen wart-infested baboon cocks on wildlife documentaries that are more pleasing on the eye.

Chav problem? - Hmm...Wood End is an area so delapidated and stricken with Chav violence and poverty that a group of well wishers from War-torn Somalia considered doing a charity gig to raise money for it… but then they just gave it up as a bad idea, because some things are just too.far.gone. Instead, they released a single entitled: “Can’t the government just put something in the water to stop them breeding?”

Living in Coventry is like being implanted by an alien – you’re alive, and so you carry on regardless; trudging through life in the vain hope that everything is alright, but deep down you know that some day…it’s going to burst through your chest and leave you face-down dead in your bowl of Coco-Pops.

So 'why do I still live here?' I hear you ask. Why don’t I just fuck off? I can’t. I’m stuck here – generations of friends and family are all here, sharing the misery and mass hysteria from behind our state-of-the-art security systems. We’re in it together.

Besides, I love a good rant.


Maybe I shouldn't work for the Coventry Tourist Board...if there is such a thing. What a fucking job that would be.


(...and don't even get me started on the football team...I thought that if I as much as touched on that subject then my feeble brain might blow a microchip…Or I might burst into tears…and nobody wants to see that – I feel shite enough as it is).




* The ‘Cofa’s tree’ bit about the origins of the name 'Coventry' is true...if I remember my old history lessons correctly – 'every day’s a school day' and all that...
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:18, 10 replies)

Hull deserves more of a mention
as it is remarkable for its malodourous industry. Depending on the direction of the wind, and providing local farmers aren't muck-spreading, you can experience the following smells:

* The cocoa mill smells gorgeous. Except in certain weather conditions when it smells terrible and I'm not sure how that might occur.
* "Mauri Yeast" smells a lot like, well I don't know. The only thing I've smelt the same was a soft-drink I bought in the late 80s that was technically chocolate-ade. It smelt like Mauri Yeast and tasted like it too. (Not to confused with Maori Yeast which is probably an antipodean genital infection).
* Cargills is a plant that processes oilseed, producing edible oils and fats. So you can imagine what that smells like.
* Then there's Holmes Hall Tanners. On a good day, it smells of chamois leathers, (those squidgy leather rags that you wash the car with if you're not familiar with them). On a bad day, it smells like someone's wedged a couple of stink bombs up your nose and then smacked you in the face with a handful of sulphur.
* Near the docks, there's a strong smell of what I think is a over-used tar boiler that someone has added a load of molasses to.
* There's a fish processing plant next to the fish docks. It does not smell of the fresh fish (which smells like the sea), it smells of bad fish.
* The gas-works always smells like there's a massive leak. I think it's where they add the Ethyl Mercaptan (which gives the gas its familiar odour). The gas coming out of your cooker is about 10 parts per million. This place will have drums of the stuff
* BP own a large site just outside the city that produces acetic acid. It smells like salt and vinegar crisps, if you climbed inside a warehouse full of them, which happen to be rejects because they'd added 100 times the amount of flavourings than normal, and you inhaled sharply.
* There's a place that makes breadcrumbs and croutons. It smells like a chip pan that hasn't seen fresh oil in years.

Fortunately, the bone-meal factory closed many years ago. If you're not familiar with the smell, go in a petshop, open the biggest tub of fishfood you can find (the multi-coloured flakes stuff, not the pellets) and get a good noseful of that. Now multiple it by lots.

Sadly, Rank Hovis shut their flour mills. That smelt of freshly baked bread all the time. I used to catch the bus outside there and there was a fan outlet, so warm air that smelt of bread when waiting for the bus in a freezing November morning was heavenly.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:04, 4 replies)

Whitby.
There's a festival there every year, called the Penny Hedge. This consists of sticking a few twigs in the sand, then watching how long it takes for the tide to wash them away.
It's a matter of pride, when the swing bridge goes up, to see who can jump over it first. That person is then revered as a sort of Wicker Man, till the next time the bridge ascends, and the jollity starts again.
It's traditional to have a fight every weekend. If you don't you're shunned for a term of 5 years. And you can't marry a close relative either. Lovely place.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Mon 2 Nov 2009, 10:58, Reply)

I was...
born in Basildon, you fucking bastard!

Glad I chased you now...
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 10:55, Reply)

Nuff said?
I beg to differ.
(McChinaman banned, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 10:47, Reply)

Middlesbrough
After seeing Middlesbrough mentioned several times this week, and on more that one occasion from people who have lived here for relatively short periods of time, I thought I'd have a little word in it's defence.

Middlesbrough has seen year on year reductions in crime figures since 2005/6 and pioneered the talking CCTV scheme which has been a great success and has inspired other towns and cities to follow suit.

The council estates may be rough, yet we have NO gun crime (well, 1 incident I can remember in my whole life) and very little knife crime.

The majority of chav's are laughable, I have lived here 23 years (minus the 3 months in Newcastle which was much worse, although I lived right in the city centre so cannot really compare it) and I have been punched once, immediately after which the young gentleman fled.

We have a fantastic up and coming University which recently won University of the year in the Times Higher Education Awards, and the town is one of the pillars of the (albeit declining) British steel industry.
The air may be smoggy, but it’s nothing compared to say some other places I’ve visited and I’ve never experienced anything close to the joy of London Underground-induced black bogeys.

Oh, and for the things I missed, I’ll let my mate* Jeff tell you about them:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdBuDSEokz0&feature=related


Sorry if slightly (completely) off topic.


*may not be my mate.
(TheColonel, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 10:46, 1 reply)

Heidelberg (Melbourne)
My sister and her BF moved to Heidelberg because they were at Uni and rent was cheap.

Their house was an asbestos clad slum surrounded by junkies and bogans. When they moved in, the front door was missing, taken by the previous tenant, and the mailbox was stuffed with summonses for the same guy.

While they were moving in, the neighbour offered to sell them drugs. They asked about the door and summonses and the neighbour nodded, "yeah, he was a grouse bloke".

The neighbour stopped talking to my sister after the police came around looking for the previous tenant and she suggested that the neighbour seemed to be friends with him.

The sculptures in the park were old engine parts embedded in concrete as that was the only thing vandals couldn't wreck.

Wrecked abandoned cars abounded. A new one was burned every week.

This place is why napalm was invented.
(xixax, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 9:41, 2 replies)

Lerwick
I live in the most northern town in the uk, Lerwick. "Ooh how nice" you say, "all scandinavian". We have the northern most tesco. During the 00's there has been a huge influx of junkie scousers. I got punched in the face by one. And you only get three hours of daylight in the winter. But you also get 21 hours of daylight in the summer, which is shit too, the local diy shop makes a fortune on black out blinds.

Lerwick Is rubbish I'm moving to Stevenage or Swansea
( rgordon00, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 8:59, 4 replies)

Chinaman's comments remind me of how one of my daughters used to complain
that our home town (already mentioned here a few times) was rubbish, there was nothing to do, people stared at you in the street, etc.

She kept up this dreary litany right up to the age of 20, when she became friends with a pleasant young woman from Belfast.

The new friend LOVED our town, because she found people here tolerant: nobody cares about your background or sexuality and there are no places you can't go to because of your religion.

As Chinaman notes, your own home town must have its virtues or your parents wouldn't have brought you up there!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 8:12, 4 replies)

Cheery souls
I've just bought my airline ticket to move to the UK permanently. Every one of the potential venues for my new life have been mentioned at least once in this QOTW. Thanks a fucking bunch!

For my own crappy towns, NZ has plenty. Greymouth, Blenheim and Ashburton number among my least favourite. Hoons in utes, cockies lolloping around in wellies and vapid sluts abound. Man I can't wait to fuck off
(GingahNZ It's ok, I'm taking it back, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 7:52, 6 replies)

My hometown
When I was growing up and still in school, I thought my hometown was a rancid shitpit of nothing deadheads. "There's nothing to do!" was the constant cry. There were only 8000 people, the shops ranged from McKays all the way to a John Menzies. Most of them were family-run businesses, like the butchers, the sweet & video shop, the bakers. There were numerous churches, pubs and a bingo, which seemed to saisfy all the adult entertainment. It was right on the coast, but immediately led straight into barley-growing and cattle-raising countryside. Nothing to do!!

After I grew the fuck up, I realised that I had been an arrogant little twat and that it was a great place to being up a family - where you could leave your doors open, where you got to know your neighbours, where you could have a personal relationship with the various professionals in town, such as the banks (yes! it's true - if they knew you they would be far more accomodating. I've moved halfway round the world and have still got my account based in my home town), the schoolteachers, garage mechanics and pub landlords. The football boys club was manned entirely by volunteers, as were the army cadets, the Guides and Brownies, the Scouts and the Boys Brigade, all of which were well-attended.

I don't want to overstate how great it was (it was a bitchy, nosy place), but it's easy to overlook the virtues of a smaller less flashy places. Shops and all that may be nice, but is that all you want from where you live?
(McChinaman banned, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 1:35, Reply)

Basingstoke...
Unfortunately i have lived here for 15 years and still can't walk through town without being hassled by the population of chavvy filth every 2 minutes.

Basingstoke is in a book called "Crap Towns". If you ever see it in a book shop, check the top 10 and you will it boasting the #9 spot out of 50 towns in England.

I feel so ashamed :(
(And3h, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 0:14, Reply)

Rubbish Towns
Liphook in Hampshire (village with towny pretentions)
Pikeys, chavs, ritual binge drinking and all things kebab related.
More and more and more housing for knocked up waynettas, and for pikeys doing their best to out-breed tax-payers.

Gated communities springing up to defend the London bound communters from the barbarian hordes
What was once a beautiful, peaceful english village is now beset by scum who you wouldn't want working in the local recycling center

It's quite easy to get punched in the face for daring to have a quiet pint in Liphook these days, simply because of all the bitter have-bots who are resentful of anyone who isn't scowling, posturing and wearing the urban uniform.

Now thats fucked up - hence my vote.
(pistonbroke, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 23:02, Reply)

Accrington.
Chav infested shithole. Enough said.
(roflwaffle MarpMarp, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 22:45, 3 replies)

Prestatyn.
Went on Holiday there once. Even though it was a £10 deal with the Sun, I felt ripped off.

The only places we could go were other holiday camps. We couldn't even go to the shops, as the only shop in the immediate area that we found that wasn't a pound was a kwik save. It was quite a good kwik save (certainly better than any of the ones that were near where I live, but not really an interesting place to be.

The "beach" was a permanently damp sand pit, and there was a permanent wind, which is presumably why there was a huge windfarm several miles out to sea, which , despite the distance, still made an audible buzz.

The whole area is classy enough that Kerry Katona has apparently been offered a job performing at one of the campsites.
(Ok, I'll get me coat, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 22:01, 1 reply)

Seascale.
My first girlfriend lived there, and had hilariously moved from the middle of Camden. She liked being near the sea, until I pointed out that she lived next to Sellafield.
( Angry Boss Bee I love horses, death to other animals, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 21:17, Reply)

I live in Cape Town.
We don't worry about the little things, like having people blasting shit music on their phones. There's more immediate things to worry about, like the guy with the knife who will actually kill you if you don't give up all your stuff. Or the taxis with no steering wheels (no, this is not a myth).

Cape Town's lovely to live in if you have money and can afford to shut yourself off in the balmy heights. If you're living hand to mouth or are a Filthy Student(tm), you're fucked. This is the city where 30% of the population does not even have a house, let alone a bank account or anything like that.
(Tiktock Beating off flamers with a shitty stick, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 21:11, 2 replies)

Possibly Edmonton
There was a pub called the Golden Fleece in the 80's where I overheard this conversation:
"Seen John lately?"
"He's down Wandsworth."
"Working?"
"Nah, Doing bird."
"How about Freddy?"
"Parkhuurst."
"Working?"
"Nah, doing bird."
A short silence.
"What about Harry?"
"Brixton."
"Doing bird?"
"Nah, he's got a job down there".
(Razors, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 19:59, Reply)

A couple of nominations
Stanley, Co Durham - the standout feature is a bowling alley on top of an Asda, and the locals totally ignore traffic signals (or any other law on the statute book).

Dunstable - I had lunch in a pub there and realised the draught was coming from a bullet hole in the nearest window.

I live near Swindon, so I feel qualified to comment.
(rogerzilla, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 18:38, 5 replies)