“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)

You can escape if you really want to.
*throws rope*
( girlinthehole, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:25, closed)

click

absolutely fantastic
(Cov Boy, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:31, closed)

Welcome to Coventry
Seen painted on bed sheet on traffic island just of the A45 :-

"Happy 30 th Birthday Grandma, we all love you"

I am from Birmingham and that's not the best but Coventry is the pits of despair and heartache and makes Birmingham look like the garden of eden.
(amsterdam_neild, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:06, closed)

hahahahahah
Now that is funny!

Oh and, nice post, Pooflake. A click for you.
(ConanTroutman thought we would free the vulture, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 14:14, closed)

Now I want Coco Pops.
(Pope Jamiroquai III, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 12:37, closed)

Whilst I agree with your excellent rantage.....
...I can't help but remember when Coventry was a great city to be in. Our home town was once a great industrial centre, there was plenty of work about at all levels, therefore there was money about, again, at all levels.
I just feel the heart has gone from the city, kids now don't have the opportunity to train at world-renowned companies*, which would have given them a living wage and a chance to get onto the housing ladder. There's no hope in the place for any betterment other than by X factor or lottery.
It's a shame, there's so much history, we used to be the toolroom of the world and now there's just a seething low-level bitterness manifesting itself in tribalism of all sorts and a deep distrust of any form of erudition.
Mind you, it's the hometown of The Belmers** so it can't be all bad!

*As an aside, when I left school (1976) I applied for 15 apprenticeships and had to turn down 6. My first training school had space for 70, now you'd be hard-pressed to find 70 apprenticeships on offer in the whole city.
** Laziest, least-talented band in Christendom.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 15:13, closed)

Damnation
I thought you were going to spill the beans on Rugby. Described by a friend of mine as - like Great Yarmoth with out the charm ...
(Biff..., Mon 2 Nov 2009, 16:31, closed)

I live about 10 miles from Coventry
I can't even begin to articulate the loathing I have for the place.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 18:00, closed)

It's a shame
because if you know anything about the history of the place from the Dark Ages onwards it could well have turned out so differently I'm proud that it got bombed to fuck in WWII and the people cracked on and I'm proud to have known a lot of people that lived through it. I'm also proud to know a lot of the people that worked for years in all of the engineering works and factories that were there before closing down one after another in the space of about a decade tearing the heart out of the place. There are some beautiful places and people hidden amongst that concrete and litter, but you have to know where to find it....What I don't like these days is the tribalism that's grown up, the pride in brutal violence and cheap coke and (put far more eloquently by Capt Placid) the dislike of anything that might be seen as self improvement. To be honest, it makes me sad when I visit, although I still have a great affection for the place considering I know live in what really is officially one of the worlds biggest shitholes as rated by the UN rather than just the opinion of a bunch of fellow webtards...
(Oil Slick, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 22:27, closed)

It's got some fantastic buildings...
The football team makes me want to tear my hair out in frustration, scream and cry. However, WWII didn't destroy all of Coventry's medieval core. You just have to look around a bit.

www.amazon.co.uk/Buildings-Coventry-Illustrated-Architectural-History/dp/0752431153/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257268699&sr=8-1
(grandmaswhiskers, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 17:20, closed)