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)

Hanley
I ended up slightly lost near Hanley bus station at about 5am once. It was terrifying, but fortunately the streets were deserted. Unfortunately this meant there was nobody around to ask for directions to the train station.

Grrrrr at National Express buses and dead mobile phones!
(Meya, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 17:39, closed)

Valentinos...
say no more.
(Kip, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:50, closed)

Valentinos
was bloody good. Takes me back to a time when Stoke has some pretence of a nightlife. I remember many a night when you'd queue for half an hour to get into The Place, only to be told 'sorry mate, bit casual for tonight', then running as fast as your drunken legs could carry you to try and get to Vallys before they started charging to get in.
(bblgoose, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 12:12, closed)

Hanley looks a lot like pictures of Canterbury town centre after the Baedeker raids in 1942.
Your average street goes building-building-rubble-building-rubble-car park-building.
(jamesthegill opens new tabs with his scroll wheel, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 19:41, closed)

EVERY street
has that routine. It's known as Oatcake's Equation.
(Zgrzyt My dog gets more Christmas cards than I do., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 21:54, closed)

Don't forget the bits that connects the towns:
Shelton - Home to all the Asian taxi drivers who don't live in Cobridge
Cobridge - Joining Hanley to Burslem with a red light district, an old peoples' home, a mosque and a couple of churches.
Abbey Hulton - Known locally as Scabby Abbey. Home to the scummiest chavs in Christendom. Makes Meir look classy
Meir - Cowboy country. When they upgraded the A50, they built a tunnel under it. The better solution would have been to bulldoze Meir into the hole and tarmac over it.
Etruria - Famous for some bloke building a factory there over 200 years ago. Factory long gone to be replaced with ugly industrialisation which, following numerous recessions, they're now trying to replace with overpriced housing and out-of-town retail opportunities.
( Snappyuk gets BIGGER with free sample., Thu 29 Oct 2009, 23:23, closed)

And what about the outlyers?
Chell, Fegg Hayes, Chell Heath...


Christ. Chell Heath.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 22:12, closed)