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)

Jesus...
Otley... Fuck me... Used to live near there...
( SpankyHanky, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 12:41, closed)

Ilkley..
Is the same, except they drive better cars and have that 'We know we're from Yorkshire really, but we'll try and hide it by sounding posh' accent.

Snap on the Old People/scenery/one way in, one way out and roadworks too - and they're trying to shut most of their pubs down too. arseheads.
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 13:19, closed)

..
Passed through Otley fairly recently, the buggers have only shut The Bowl;ing Green - best pub there; Trevor was a star, albeit an eccentric one. Shame.
( Adolf Jitler is editor of Practical Shoelace Collector, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 15:37, closed)

Trev was ace!
Yeah I can't remember why it shut down, but yeah that was pretty much the only decent pub in Otley.. even then it was still full of wankers, but hey!
( MCQ Cartoons n' shit: bagowank.com, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 12:13, closed)

I once nearly got mugged
in Otley.

Luckily a friend of a friend was with me and knew who the chavvy little shits were.

Horrible place.
(razakel, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 1:13, closed)

I got mugged once in broad daylight
Happy joy!
( MCQ Cartoons n' shit: bagowank.com, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 12:14, closed)

Otley
I was there last night for a friends Halloween party..

You're right about the old people - fuck me it's like Gods waiting room. Popped out for something to eat before drinking copious amounts of beer, to witness some twat in a pirate suit running over peoples parked cars, and everything seems to be for sale, shops, pubs, even the fucking car parks are either To Let or For Sale.

The only pub we went to was 'The Rose and Crown' - busy little place, not bad actually, we did get a few funny looks by the locals, but as we were out with a couple of people from Otley, we were generally accepted.

A couple of lads who were working there over the weekend were'nt so lucky, about an hour of being there, they were on the receiving end of the local hospitailty via a kicking in the beer garden.

Great fun.
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 14:08, closed)