Redditch
Some of you who like me are really fucking old might remember a TV character called Kevin Turvey, who was played by Rik Mayall just before the Young Ones came along.

Kevin lived in Redditch, which pre-WW2 was apparently a fairly pleasant, albeit nondescript town. Then after the war, they built homes fit for heroes somewhere else, and dropped the worst council tenants from nearby Birmingham and Coventry into Redditch.

The place is a shit hole; the inbred residents kept apart from the rest of humanity thanks to a maze of roads which lead to anywhere other than civilisation.

And who is MP for this fair kingdom - step forward former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Kind of says it all.
( I_Was_Mordred, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 13:17, 31 replies)

Borehamwood
i spent the first 19 years of my life here, a town effectionately refered to by commuters as "boringwood" and by residents as "our shithole". the residents assesment is the more accurate of the two.
highlights include:

the greenfields cafe; located in prime real estate in the centre of town, serving (piss weak) tea, (plastic) cheese sandwhiches, and (cuppa)soup of the day (lighly stirred, as to still contain lumps of powder) served with a bread roll (or a stale burger bun). this is a friendly family run business, and not at all a gang lead front for a coke dealership 'onist guv.

the foundations theatre; or more specifically, the foundations of a theatre, construction on which was halted, persumably when the company involved realised that they were trying to build a theatre in cocking borehamwood. a place where the cinema struggles to stay open.

elstree film studios; so proud of their locale they try and pretend they're somewhere else.

the big brother house; also apparently located in "elstree", when the bb house is too good for you, you're basically fucked.

i could go on (the pub where paul merson was caught snorting coke! ect,) but frankly i'm depressing myself a bit now.
( ms morbo lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 13:11, 2 replies)

As true now as it was in 1937:
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Sir John Betjeman
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 13:09, 12 replies)

Nother Pearost - Berwick
Nice town, shame about the residents!
Berwick-upon-Tweed is a very pretty town (if you ignore the sprawling council estates - more of that later) with a history dating back to Roman times. Its position on the border of England and Scotland has made it the site of numerous battles and invasions. The most recent invasion has come from inside, from the housing estates, where Chavs have been spawned. Now the only battle likely to be fought between England and Scotland will be "you have it...no, YOU have it."

I grew up just outside Berwick. How I survived is a question I still ask myself on a regular basis. The old town of Berwick is very pleasant for a weekday visit with bridges, castles and various other architectural things. However, in the late 70s, a number of council estates sprang up around the town, producing generation after generation of fuck ugly, inbred, thick children.

The Berwick Chav is a special breed. Clothed in finest garb from the fashion houses of Allsports and TK Maxx, they walk in herds of 5-6. The Berwick accent is not pleasant either. Imagine a mixture of pissed Geordie and pissed Glaswegian and you are getting pretty close. The scumbags congregate on benches in Marygate(the main street) outside Woolworths, drinking White Lightning from the dodgy off-licences and terrorising the passers by. At night, they can be found trying to gain entry to Bedrocks Nightclub (bring your own flick-knife) where they dance the night away before going outside for a fight, kebab, piss up against a lamp-post and a quick shag in the doorway of Dixons (not necessarily in that order.)

Oh, and we should also mention the seagulls. These winged rats will attack you at the first available opportunity. They appear to be in league with the chavs, as they will only shit on you if you are wearing non-chavwear items.

Go to Berwick by all means, but dont go during the night and for the love of God's ringpiece, do not, under any fucking circumstances, think of actually moving there.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 13:08, 3 replies)

Barrow-in-Furness
Just down the road from me.

The people who live there love it (and keep 'Love Barrow' as a slogan) - I think they're the only ones who do!

Home of some of the roughest and most badly looked after pubs and clubs in the country (Google 'gaza strip barrow' for some fine examples on a notorious beat-em-up street), some nuclear subs, a dock museum, a couple of commercial parks with the usual Tesco, Currys etc and a dead town centre full of shut shops.

And lots and lots of roadworks and building sites. All the time.
If they'd stop trying to "improve" the place all the time by digging holes in the road, putting up big empty buildings etc it might stand a chance.

Their answer to a dead town centre high street is: new seats, new trees and a few new fancy lights. And maybe another statue or two. Funded by the businesses that they're busy starving...

Best part of Barrow is the A590 leading out of it.
(Cloudane, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 13:07, 11 replies)

Armagh.
I was born there, but obviously enough I haven't lived there in years, as I'm not an idiot.
On top of all the usual Northern Irish problems, which really haven't gone away, they've completely failed to do anything whatsoever to deal with the fact the place is dying a slow death.
All the industry is gone, and they seem to think that this can be solved by opening a matchbox sized heritage museum.
More than half the shops in the place have closed, so they deal with this by filling all the shop windows with nice looking goods, and adding a small card giving you the address of where you have to go to actually buy the stuff.
They did build a lovely theatre there a few years ago, for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I was doing a gig there, and spent half an hour pointing out everything that was wrong with the town, and got rewarded with a standing ovation, from the councillors who fucked the place up.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:59, 3 replies)

Near the end of May this year...
... a venture to Ireland to oversee the Christening of my baby daughter led to an overnight stay on the island of Anglesea. There is but one town, clutching bravely at the rock of this barren land mass. A shabby sign welcomed those who dared pass through this portal to the seas beyond.

Cold, damp and desperate for something that may vaguely be described as food, my wife and I ventured out into the slate grey morass of cottages and disused car parks in search of nutrition. Despite the weekend afternoon the town was a ghostly place, bereft of the laughter of children, the tutting of mothers or the conversation one might expect. Amidst the gloom stood a neon beacon promising warmth and company. Slowly we approached, fearing what we might find there. Entering through a glass door, thick with seemingly centuries of grease and despair, we discovered the hub of the community - a grizzled man in a shabby suit, nursing a Yorkshire Terrier long since absolved of any enthusiasm for life. The pallid faces of desperation and a clinging sense of regret at having ever ventured near the place engulfed the 'restaurant' like a spiralling miasma. As I perused the glossy synthetic food substitute options before me, a thin, reedy voice, filled with the memories of a thousand lonely nights whispered to me "would you like fries with that?"

If I had known then what I know now dear reader, then I might perhaps have accepted this invtation to imbibe fat smeared potato starch, for I would need the sustenance of both fries and the apologetic, tepid McNuggets that flopped before me in their cardboard tomb.

Leaving this emporium of lost souls, we dared venture once more onto the streets, cloaked in the damp embrace of the afternoon. Somewhere, a sound like that of a retching cat caught our ears and out of the mist a light shone. Before we knew where we were an apparition of ghastly nightmares sidled up to our side. The lank face that stared out from within the chariot of the damned opened its mouth to utter a few lost syllables, but we were not for boarding this vessel of horrors, despite the tales of Colwyn and Bangor that the coachman promised.

Leaving in a cloud of acrid smoke, the departure of the bus plunged us back into the grey, watery silence that gripped the town so. It was at this point that, as one, we decided to spend the rest of the night in the comforting embrace of the TV screen and pillows of our hotel for the duration of the night, despite the apparently early hour.

Truly, never again would we visit Holyhead.
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:58, 4 replies)

Mars
Just north of Pitsburgh. Typical linear village either side of a main road, a couple of crap motels, a supermarket, thats it.

This was in 1989 (I was there for work) I doubt it has improved.
( Bartleby A dead man on vacation, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:54, Reply)

Kappa-Slappa Jailbait
You couldn't even have a wank in this town without having some teenage girl battering down your front door, punch you in the face, pull down her knickers and squat over the splodge-wadded kleenex, inserting it deep inside her clout in the hope she'd get pregnant and move a little further up the council housing list.

When I first moved there I remember sitting in a pub, getting out my fags (back in the glorious days when you could spread cancer round to the ungreatful health Nazis), and sparking up. And the locals just stared. FIRE!!! OOooooOOOooooHHHHH!!! I thought they were going to start worshiping me as some sort of god. You could say this place was a little backwards.

The most notable memory of this place was when I went to buy some supplies from the local cornershop. A preeteen chavette was loitering outside, resplendant in bright pink Kappa-slappa shell suit with her oily hair tied back in a ponytail on her head so she looked like a scabby old pineapple.

"Mate, can you buy us some fags?"

"Errr... no..."

"Go on! Buy us ten Lambert and Butler," ahhh - the brand nine out of ten chavs go batshit mental for. They're like catnip for chavs.

I stopped: "No," I said more firmly.

"Cunt! Go on!"

Hmmmmmm. I gathered this girl didn't have a future career working as a diplomatic attache for the UN. But I was tired and wasn't really thinking straight. "OK," I mumble. "Just this once."

I enter the shop. Buy my supplies. Grab a ten pack of the cheapo cancersticks, and then I leave. I had them over to this bangle-earinged lovely and then she looks me up and down and smiles a toothless smile. "How do you want me to pay for these?" she asked.

Took me a while to register. But when it finally sunk in I very nearly shat myself. "Money would be good," I said, feeling a strange tightening in my gut as if someone had sneaked up behind me and was attempting to extract my lunch by constricting my sides, like I was some kind of dozy halfwit human squeezy ketchup bottle.

She actually reached out and stroked my chest. "I was thinking of summit else..."

"Errr... you're not even old enough to have tits," I reasoned.

"Fuck you! You fucking homo!" And with that she grabbed the Lamberts and fucked off into the gloom, her fat arse rustling in her polyester gear, her ponytail bobbing from side to side like a scabby old rattle snake, her Elizabeth Duke gold plated bangles clattering, a veritable thesaurus of new and interesting swear words spewing out of her herpes-encrusted lips. And from that day on a certain group of chav girlies used to scream: "FUCKKIN HOMO!!!" At me whenever I'd walk by. (Very embarrassing if you happen to be with a girl you're trying to leave a messy deposit inside of).

Fucking weird place.... Managed to get through the couple of years I had there without getting done for statutory rape, thank God. I swear, if a girl's still a virgin on her thirteenth birthday in this place she's ostracised for being more frigid than an eighteen wheeler ice truck full of Cornetto's in the fucking Antarctic with a busted radiator and a permanently jammed open sun roof. Bolton... The thought of the place still makes me shudder.

Apologies to any B3tan Boltonites... though I doubt there's any. Electricity is still seen as poncy, Southern and nouveau riche in that neck of the woods...
( SpankyHanky, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:38, 10 replies)

Fecking Tiverton in devon
There are very few places in the UK that I would call a complete and utter shithole but Tiverton or "Ter'un" as the locals call, in Devon, is one of them.

Most of the people who live there are crosses between crusties and professional dole-ers, kind of under-chavs if you will. Most people's career ambitions stretch to get signed onto disability allowance. It's like getting a great promotion at work.

My sister happens to unfortunately live there and since her retard of a husband (he had never left Devon when he met her - aged 38) left her he has shacked up with a 19 year old and she is now pregnant with her 4th kid (it is his 5th). I think that if you get to the age of 20 without at least 2 kids by 2 differnt dads and at least one divorce, you are no-one In Tiverton.

I once saw a documentary about how crap the life of 2 complete losers is and was not at all suprised that they lived in Tiverton.

If anyone happens to be an RAF pilot, could you maybe accidentally drop a few bombs there. Go on, please.
(Tom Jones's Mojo Hasn't had any since, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:37, 5 replies)

Middlesbrough
Need I say more?
(insomniac-surfer oh go on then, just this once, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:36, 21 replies)

Port Talbot
Do you like the Black Lung? You fucking will do in this little shithole of a place. Actually, saying that it's not a really bad area but there is so much smog 'n' shite due to two-thirds of the town being a Corus Steelworks plant that it's impossible to remain positive.

One part of the area is a giant caravan site on mudflats by an inlet just to the side of the steelworks. This has all manner of tenants ranging from normals to nutcases in all shapes and sizes. And limbs. Probably.

Frankie Boyle recently did a gig in Swansea and had to drive past Port Talbot; he was quoted as saying that Port Talbot looked like a breeding area for guests on the Jeremy Kyle Show, and was amazed how the town resembled the Hellmouth. Tbh, I'm sure he's used those comments about 36 other towns while on tour (wouldn't suprise me).

The thing I don't really like about this QOTW is that one man's shithole is another man's mansion. We can say that we don't like an area very easily because of what we've heard, yet we don't really know what's going on there and what the tenants have to put up with. In my experience in living in various shite parts of Swansea I have come to realize that it's really how you live rather than where that makes all the difference. I currently live in such a shithole, but we respectfully look after our property and respect our neighbours.

Now where did I leave that petrol-can and me matches....
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:34, 2 replies)

Great Yarmouth
I have been reliably informed that the locals there could easily be confused as extras from The Deliverence.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:33, 2 replies)

Murmansk
Not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.
(Zgrzyt My dog gets more Christmas cards than I do., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:29, 1 reply)

Wicken
A fairly big vilalge in Cambridgeshire, populated mostly by the old and birdwatchers. I had the misfortune of growing up there. Now don't get me wrong; up to the age of about 12 it has its appeals. Lots of fields to play in etc etc. However, about the time that you notice girls, you realise that it's in the middle of fucking nowhere, there's no shops and the bus service is somewhat limited. By limited I mean one return bus service a week; it departs for Cambridge on a Wednesday morning. The return is on a Friday evening.
(OP, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:29, 3 replies)

Stoke-on-Trent
Not content with being one crap town, Stoke-on-Trent have gone all out and pissed over the UK by declaring themselves as SIX crap towns and trying to disguise it as a city.

HANLEY - Full of people that when you're trying to film a University project, come up to you and shove their oatcakey faces in the way. More chavs than eyebrows and one very annoying dancing hobo outside a closed Woolworths. FUN FACT: Hanley is 83% wasteland, with demolished buildings on every street. Saved from utter failure by one thing - Revolutions vodka bar. This is supposedly the "centre" of the "city".
BURSLEM - Where Port Vale play. I needn't say more. Slowly tarmacking over the whole area.
STOKE - Just to piss off non-Stokies, they've named one of their six town within Stoke... Stoke. So when you say to a Stokie, "Hey ugly, what's in Stoke?" they cannily point you in the direction of the Spode factory and tell you that the streets are paved with pottery. Home of the Stoke rail station, conveniently located next to nothing.
TUNSTALL - I've never before seen a place where there is paint peeling off bricks, but lo, here it is. 27% of all houses are abandoned according to the Department Of Making Up Facts.
FENTON - Has a 24 hour tesco, staffed entirely by sub-level aliens disguised as humans. You can tell they're aliens because they've forgotten how to blink, and stack shelves. Crime rate slightly higher than that of Somalia.
LONGTON - Feel themselves worthy of their own train station, so if you ever make the journey to Crewe, you get to see it in all it's grey glory. Doesn't stop raining.

If you live in Stoke, as I did for three miserable years, I have a top tip! Stay indoors. No matter how damp and dull your house is, it's even damper and duller outside.
(Zgrzyt My dog gets more Christmas cards than I do., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:27, 8 replies)

Bolton
A friend of mine walked into a Gregs in Bolton and asked if they had any vegetarian pasties.

The fish-wife behind the counter looked at him like he'd shat on the floor before saying:

'CHICKIN UN MUSHRUUM'
(Richard Earl of Cambridge Cruel, Savage, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:27, Reply)

Ohio shuts down after noon.
Seriously people: Both Cleveland and Columbus had nothing open and empty streets on a Saturday. If some tumbleweed had blown past, I wouldn't have been surprised.

It was almost like in the movies, where the locals shut their windows when they see the outsiders approaching. The difference being that neither city even had that. They were both complete ghost-towns.

It made getting lunch quite difficult when not even the Subways and the McDonalds were open...
( Green Spanner and his magical lack of activity, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:25, 2 replies)

Otley
My home town of Otley, also known as the O-Zone, O-Town and my personal addition.. Otletraz. I lived in this godforsaken blandness for most of my life, and have spent large amounts of money getting away. Many others are sadly not so lucky.

Otley is built on the three cornerstones of any well-to-do northern market town. Charity shops, arson and old man pubs.

Many people will be quick to defend Otley because yes, the area surrounding it is stunningly pretty. Forests, farmland, hillsides and lots of places to go walking. The town itself has a nice little market square and a lot of Victoriana. People take photos.

BUT THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH SCENERY CAN SATISFY IN YOUR NEED FOR A LIFE.

The town is centered around three streets in a wonky triangle, two of which are dug up at any one time... regulated by traffic lights intentionally created to cause hideous delays should you not take a backroute.

There is a market three times a week, or maybe only two now.. that has steadily declined from somewhere that people would travel from miles around for, to a few stalls selling stuff nobody wants. Along with the obligatory Easy Listening music seller, piping stale Neil Diamond in waves across the cold long-suffering cobbles into the ears of ashen-faced biddies.

Ohhh the biddies. Japan has nothing on our ageing population. A walk down Kirkgate sees the road take the role of Moses in parting the Silvertop Sea. Two lanes of OAPs moving at the pace of a particularly viscous lava flow, carrying with it irate gobby chav mothers with pushchairs and unfortunate visitors, swept away in the flow, to be deposited like detritus outside Scope. Market day results in frequent clogs in the system with grannies stopping abruptly to talk to another tonedeaf years-gatherer, resulting in a multiple person pile up behind.

With biddies come charity shops. At the height of Otley's infestation of these sprout smelling chintz generators, we had the quite impressive total of 17. As every useful or even vaguely useful shop moved out of town, a biddie would do a wee on the doorframe to claim it as their own, and overnight build themselves a natty counter full of plastic jewellery, before shitting out a stack of Mills and Boons, and settling in their new nest ready to breathe on you.

The only thing that outnumbers charity shops in Otley, is pubs. Brilliant you might say, but alas no. As these pubs contain Otley folk. Every pub is essentially the same, an old man pub full of strange old folk, staring either at you, or at each other. Unless you go to one of the four frequented by the local younger population... in which case its the same, but noisier and with more fights

Otley is just getting worse with the current climate, and much of the centre has been butchered of pretty much any shops at all. Of course, the foundation stone of the town... Woolworths disappeared sometime ago, and even the old women have kept their mitts off that one at the moment. The most exciting thing to happen to Otley's shopping in the last 15 years was the appearance of an Argos.

Oh except we just got a Sainsburys... it has completely fucked up the traffic pattern across the one road that wasn't a problem, but now we have 3 supermarkets for no apparent reason. Awesome.

Other highlights of Otley are the bus station, either completely jammed with the blue rinse brigade, or jammed with chavvy little shits being noisy. It's great. The riverside and park are nice but all mostly fenced off now because people are worried that kiddies will die, it too is generally frequented by chavs once again. Oh and no trip to Otley is complete without a trip to the Weston Estate, a sublime council cackhole, lovely.

Oh yes, and how could I forget... the young population of chavvy shits puts up a decent fight on the biddies. Still heavily outnumbered, but a good effort. The town completely shuts at 11, the bus service completely woeful to anywhere good.... just don't go out after dark. *big grinning thumbs up*

Come to Otley, it really is a bag of wank. (2009 Winning Slogan)
( MCQ Cartoons n' shit: bagowank.com, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:25, 7 replies)

Basingstoke
Born, Brought Up, Still live there
*feels need to apologise*



*returns back under stone*
(nutttywings is living on the edge until, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:20, Reply)

Trapped in Bangor
When I was a dreadful student, I went with a bunch of mates on a walking holiday in Wales, essentially as an excuse to do very little walking and extraordinary amounts of drinking.

We arrived on the north coast of Wales on a Saturday evening and looked forward to a session in Bangor before taking the train home the following day.

WRONG! Bangor closes on Saturday afternoon, and being incredibly religious nothing, nothing opens until Monday morning. Not even the railway station to take heathens and blasphemers away from the place.

Bored out of our brains, freezing and starving after two weeks of hard drinking and very little personal hygiene, we went to church, hoping they would take pity on the poor desolates of the parish. They didn't. They took one look at us and threw us out, "you English bastards".

"I'm Irish!"

"You Irish bastard!"

By a stroke of luck we found a tea room that was open for the Devil’s service on a Sunday. It was full to the gills. But not to us. "Sorry, we're closing", said a waiter, lying through his teeth.

Eventually, we begged some food from the back door of a restaurant like the bunch of tramps we had become, and camped out in a field because even the Youth Hostel was shuttered up.

Bangor. You're crap.
( Scaryduck LIKES EGG, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:18, 5 replies)

England, thy beauties are tame and domestic
I'm spoiled. I live in Edinburgh - arguably the one of the most beautiful cities on the planet. But freely I admit that Scotland, while home to gorgeous scenery and some lovely towns, does a special line in grim, grim, grim places: Lanarkshire anyone? Motherwell? Hamilton? Airdrie? Suicide-inducing shiteholes one and all. Also worthy of special mention are the settlements around the State Hospital for Scotland and Northern Ireland at Carstairs.

But each and every one is Florence, St Petersburg and Angkor Wat rolled into one compared to Preston.

I once spent two weeks in the Holiday Inn, Preston, and frankly I'd rather have spent the time dodging arse-rapes from the criminally insane in Carstairs. Hull's a monstrosity, Wigan's a toilet, Peterborough is the death of poetry but I imagine they have some redeeming features - even if it's just a lower incest rate than Preston.

There is nothing in Preston except rain, ugliness and unrelenting endless depression. I know, I looked.

Is it actually some kind of social experiment? A kind of anti-New Lanark? Did some mill-owner decide that he would create a living hell on top of a plague pit, build squalid dwellings from a wattle-and-daub of pus and misery and finally smother it in dual carriageways and industrial estates.

The nicest thing about Preston is the station. Why? Because it's the quickest way to get the fuck out.
( calgacus Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:17, 2 replies)

Balclutha
Never heard of it? Hmm..not surprised.

To get to Balclutha, take a flight to Auckland, NZ. Then, get on another plane to Dunedin. From there, get a bus (there's 3 a day) for 1 1/2 hours until you disembark in Clyde Street, Balclutha. Well done, you've arrived. Why the cunting fuck did you bother?

Balclutha is a one horse town, where the horse has long since died of boredom. Many people will go on about the wild, untamed beauty of the South Island of New Zealand, and it is stunning. Balclutha, however...is not. It is a presbyterian, dour shithole with architecture from the "how cheap and ugly can we do it?" school of design. Calgalus mentions the grim towns of SW Scotland. Balclutha is like that, but if possible, worse.

Built on the banks of the Clutha river, Balclutha consists of 1 main street, a fair few houses...and that's fairly much it.

So picture the scene. A young Carrot (of 7 tender years) is told one morning by his mother that they are going over to New Zealand for 6 months! Hurrah! Imagine, then, the soul crushing disappointment on arrival in this arsehole of the south.

In 6 months (during UK summer, by the way...so NZ winter) I nearly lost the will to live. Honestly I can now understand how people top themselves and half the community in towns like this. The architecture was breathtakingly dull. The school I went to was crap, and I had gone from being a novelty with my English accent to being the target of all abuse that was being hurled. Maybe because I wasn't related to everyone else there...

Every Sunday we went to church...and I looked forward to it! Why? Because it was the only form of distraction from the mind-numbing tedium of my weekly existence. The weekly walk to the abbatoir where my brother worked was the only other highlight. I mean really...how bad must a town be that a trip to the slaughterhouse seems like a happy excursion?

When we left Balclutha (on the 1 train a day) I stuck 2 fingers up to what is possibly the most tedious town known to man or sheep.
( Undercovercarrot got done for gross misconduct on..., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:11, 3 replies)

Cumbernauld
Easily the shittest place in Central Scotland.

Built in the 50s as a Glasgow overspill, looks like it's been forgotten since then. It's full of Buckfast swilling maniacs who would mug you in a heartbeat. It wasn't voted the 2nd worse place in Britain for no reason.



The town centre is just depressing.
(Kia Ora it's 2 orangey 4 crows, it's just 4 me and my dog, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:11, 9 replies)

Stanwell
One of those small, satellite towns around Heathrow. If the world needed an enema, they'd stick the tube here. Still, could be worse, I could be living down the road in Ashford...

In case it hasn't been put here already...http://www.chavtowns.co.uk
(RVD420 has his world coming down on, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:10, 6 replies)

Midsomer Norton, Somerset
... is where I grew up.

Sitting outside one of the pubs and nursing a pint or two with a friend one summer's afternoon, some girls that knew my mate came over to chat to him. I said something conversational; I can't remember what, but I'm pretty sure it contained a polysyllable or something, for, with a look that if looks could kill would have me still burning to this day, one of the girls looked me up and down and said in the most spiteful, accusatory manner I have ever heard, "Urr yew intelligent or summat?!"
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:07, 4 replies)

Warrington
It's a town I usually describe with the word "Interesting". This is not in a good way. I use the word when someone has a computer problem that I have no bloody clue how to solve.



First of all, let's start with the nightlife. The main club in the town is called Mr Smith's, which you can see pictured above. The entry price of £5 might not seem so steep, but at £3 for a bottle of piss-weak Budweiser, you might start to wonder what convoluted paths led you there. To this day, so do I. I can only assume only the clinically stupid go there. In my defence, I honestly didn't know about the place. I can only assume the locals go there for the pulling opportunities- which are thin on the ground to say the least. It's either the time-honoured game of Grab-a-Granny or getting arrested. I chose neither.



Pictured above here, you can see the town centre, with what is known locally as the Skittles. They started putting these in when I was in the first year of university at the town, as an ickle bitty froshie. No-one to this day can figure out the point of these things, or a reason for them being there. They certainly don't look nice, and I can assume the person who designed them and decided they should go there must have been on some very interesting narcotics at the time. Probably to distract him from the hell of living in Warrington. The main shops around the town were mostly chav-oriented, apart from the obligatory hippie shop, usually surrounded by crowds of baying chavs taking the piss out of those who ran the gauntlet of the mouth-breathing knuckle draggers to get hold of some joss sticks.



Finally, where I went to Univerity. Padgate Campus. Don't let the above photo fool you- this is just a flattering angle. Whoever the photographer was who took this, I must congratulate them. The Stalinesque conditions of the halls would make a Siberian internment camp look like Butlins. The main place to drink there to forget your sorrows was the student union bar, since renovated and now resembling a gastro pub from hell, used to have sticky floors, dark as anything and the club was even worse. Still, the beer was cheap though, which is always a good thing.

Simply put- don't go to Warrington. It will scar you for life.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:07, 17 replies)

I once received a text from a mate
HALF WAY UP BROWN WILLY IN CORNWALL. SWEATING LIKE A CUNT. WHEN I GET TO THE TOP I’M GONNA SIT DOWN AND HAVE A LITTLE REST TIL I GET MY BREATH BACK THEN I'LL START WORKING MY WAY BACK DOWN.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Willy

Should've googled it before outing him to our entire circle of friends, I suppose...
( SpankyHanky, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:01, 3 replies)

Preemptive strike
I live in a small town, near a busy transport hub. Ramble, ramble, collection of strange people here and it's always hot.

Blah, blah, local pub is rough, I was once in there for a quiet drink when someone pulls a weapon and cuts off another guys arm.

More waffle followed by a shooting,though who shot first is often debated.

I live in Mos Eisley, scum and villany.

Thought I'd save some time now.
(Wooden meal is. Or is he?, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:00, 4 replies)