Aberdeen
It can be a pretty enough town with some intersting architecture, but that impression is short lived. Spending time there reveals it to be a grey, cold, wet, miserable, depressing place indeed.
Nobody smiles, nobody makes an eye contact with others, conversations are mumbled and brief.
2 universities means a LOT of bars, but it also means a LOT of pissed up idiots stumbling about the streets at kicking out time. Fights were the norm, and a sunday morning walk down Union Street turns into a hop-scoth game of dodging puddles of puke, piss, blood or spilt kebab.
I lived on one of the main streets from the town centre back to some of the uni residence blocks and every weekend without fail, student assholes would run over the roofs of parked cars, or kick off wing mirrors etc etc as they stumbled home.
I worked in a retail estate in an area called Bedford. I was mugged at knifepoint once. People used to stroll into the shop and steal what they wanted - no way as I going to risk a fight with some junky for £50 of the companies property. One regular shoplifter used to always get violent when confronted, and would spit at and try to bite everyone. He had heppatitus and was trying to infect everyone else. Whenever the place was broken into at night, rather than take their pick from the hundreds of thousands of pounds of stock on the shelves, the junkies would instead spend their time trying to batter open the vending machines to get the change out of them.
The overflow carpark was a dumping ground for stolen cars and home to a pack of feral kids trying to sell on whatever they had just shoplifted. One girl must have been 10 or 11 years old, and would regularly ask to be bought booze or fags. Since she had no money, she would offer the only payment she could - 10 fags for a BJ, 20 fags for sex and 6 Smirnoff Ice would get you a hour to "do whatever you want to me". Two or three times a day she would be seen getting into cars at the far end of the carpark, and emerging again a few minutes later, pulling her tracksuit trousers up.
A sad, sad place.
(dave likes cheese, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:00, 14 replies)

I'm from Aberdeen
Where's Bedford? Unless you mean the place in England.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:09, closed)

bedford, aberdeen
Bedford Road, Powis terrace, Bedford Avenue area. The retail estate with Halfords, TK Maxx etc that backs onto the Tillydrone estate, where the local wondowcleaner needs a piece of sandpaper rather than a sponge.
(dave likes cheese, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:18, closed)

Ah, Powis
The traditional home of the paedophile and the smackhead. I left the 'Deen in 1998, I'd forgotten it was called that. Near Berryden, right? Tilly's a fucked up place. Rough as fuck but enjoys a smacked out calm. I once spent a couple of weeks in Tilly at a mate's flat. Prostitute in the flat above, and the local shop was one of those that's a cage on the inside and you tell the shopkeeper what you want.

Good times.
(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:53, closed)

My borther did shop work in a part of the city called 'Seaton' (I believe)
He has similar tales of woe, where's worse?
( Cadmus has teh uplikn coeds at, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:14, closed)

seaton
Much of a muchness, I would say. Neither is a place you would want to spend time after dark.
(dave likes cheese, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 18:19, closed)

I agree...
It is a bit of a shithole, but you've gotta love the one-legged prostitute that works near the docks. Go to the Moorings at 12am on a Saturday night and you'll see her hobbling around outside somewhere. Pretty hilarious!
( Fat Fred too weird to live, too rare to die, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 19:03, closed)

Hahaha!
I have many stories about her as she used to use my mates shop in a morning when coming off her 'shift'. Lyndsey is her name I believe.
(Oil Slick, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 23:08, closed)

QOTW idea?
Maybe there should be a qotw topic on funny incidents involving hookers...

The last time I saw her I was leaving the Moorings with a few mates. We were standing around outside near the sloped part of the pavement when all of a sudden she appeared. This was the first time I had ever seen a one-legged prostitute so naturally I was quite shocked.

Anyways, this car stopped outside and Lyndsey and one of her hooker friends walked/hobbled towards it. The friend climbed up the slope to discuss prices and whatnot while Lyndsey waited at the bottom. A few minutes later she got the nod from the friend and then began to climb up the slope herself.

She took one step up the slope and then tried to use the crutch to gain balance. But instead of going forward, she fell back flat on her ass, with the crutch and her one foot flying through the air.

My mates and I could barely contain ourselves for laughing so hard. It got even better when her friend ran down towards her, helped her back on her foot, put her arm around the friends back, and then placed her in the car. The friend then shuts the door and starts talking to a random guy while the car drove off.

Apparently the guy must have had some kind of handicap-hooker fetish.

Absolutely priceless.
( Fat Fred too weird to live, too rare to die, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 13:54, closed)

I escaped
having lived there, or thereabouts, for over 20 years.

What took me so long? I was married to an Aberdonian (from the Bedford Road area, funnily enough, and who's preferred bars were The Moorings, Ma Camerons and The Blue Lamp ).

Chucking out time on Union Street... insane. The only place I've been twatted round the head for no reason whatsoever. I went down like a sack of shit. Fortunately I was with a large bunch of North Sea diver pals and whoever smacked me got a severe hiding.

Living in Torry gives you everything bad about Aberdeen in one convenient location: drunks, druggies, seagulls, the continuous din from the harbour, shitty horrible backstreets, insane neighbours, the stench of rotting fish, dismal takeaways, scary pubs - I'll stop now.
( MisterPunch did it that way on, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 20:14, closed)

My Hame Toon as well
Half my life there, half my life here in Derby (lucky me). Aberdeen used to be a great place but like all places, bits of it hit rock bottom, and then kept digging. Still, I'd prefer to live there than in Dundee.

Oh, and for an Aberdonian view of Aberdeen's crime life, the fiction of Stuart McBride (eg Cold Granite) is worth a chuckle.
( Tepid_Halibut felt like a cold, empty shell of a human...until, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 21:12, closed)

Pretty much my home town as well
Moved here when I was 8. After a good few years I went to uni for 4 years in Dundee then moved back to the 'Deen

Got to say, I preferred Dundee. Fewer fights on the streets than Aberdeen, cheaper alcohol, cheaper housing, cable TV coverage (and the fast internet that brings).
The nights out were just as bad in Aberdeen as in Dundee. I'm sure there are good places in both (the Moorings in Aberdeen is one) but Dundee has crap + much cheapness and Aberdeen has a lower level of crap + much priceyness.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 1:43, closed)

!!!
I might head up there with a crate of smirnoff ice. I need my house painted.
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 16:44, closed)

ha
i worked in the tile shop on bedford road and my mate worked as a security guard in currys when we were living at powis terrace. it was quite sketchy right enough but not that scary i found. i had some amazing times in aberdeen but it's bleak as fuck in the winter.
( tickle I was away, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 1:12, closed)

Currys?
Ha, I mentioned this in another question ages ago, but I once saw a local scummer hiding near the loading bays of currys while they were unloading stock from a truck. For a moment, everyones backs were turned and he sprang, grabbed an under-counter fridge off the tail of the truck, hoisted it above his head and sprinted the full length of the retail units, across the overflow carpark, hoisted it up onto the far wall, climbed up himself and dissappeared with it into the housing estate beyond. We never said anything to the Currys staff, who hadnt seen anything, as we reckoned that anyone who can run that far with a fridge over their head frankly deserves to get away with it.
(dave likes cheese, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 10:11, closed)