Swindon
After spending most of my life in Swindon, I feel it only fair that I comment on the place since everyone else seems to think that simply the name alone is enough to justify it's entry into Room 101.

Swindon is Shit.

Everything about it is chavvy and nasty. It's the only place in the world, probably, where Burger King has gone bankrupt. Burger King for fuck's sake. The only shops that do any kind of trade are Poundland, Wilkinson's, and Ann Summers. From the once glorious days of steam everything has been a downhill spiral apart from the 15minutes of fame as a commuter town/IT mecca of the mid-nineties.

After I went to uni they tried their best to turn it around. They pedestrianised large areas and put in all the chain bars in one handy little area that would keep all the yobs in one place, make it easier to police and try and create a bit of an atmosphere. One of the biggest bars they had was called the bedroom which featured a massive bed on the upper floor... Let's just say that the slags of Swindon aren't shy and that this was a monumental display of poor foresight by the management.

During my university years I worked away in Gloucester for a summer. I thought they were comparable in terms of shittyness but oh, how wrong I was. Gloucester at least has a Jumping Jack's! At the end of the summer, my new friends and I came to my home town for a night out on the town to celebrate our hard, summer slog: 11 hours a day, door-to-door selling educational materials in probably the 2nd or 3rd most retarded place in the U.K. It was a big mistake.

We went to the Brunel Rooms, Swindon's premier nightspot. Famed for easy girls, big fights, and... well, that's about it really.

We'd been there for about 30 minutes before my mate James got punched in the face for looking at someone else's girl. I took him to the toilets to wash the blood off his nose whereby we were dragged out by the bouncers who thought that his nosebleed was the result of having snorted too much of Bolivia's finest. They took us into the back room and slapped me about a bit, then basically strip searched him just to add insult to injury. Did I mention he was tee-total? No? He was. Very Christian, very straight-lace, never say boo, or even fuck-off, to a goose.

We decided that enough was enough and to call it a night. We left Brunel and were walking towards the glowing lights of The Van. Prime rat burgers were only seconds away but it was not to be. Some crazy fucker with an iron bar was entertaining the notion that every man in Swindon wanted his woman. This was unlikely, since she was on all fours bleeding from where he'd lumped her previously. After the police arrived and took him away, things calmed down and we managed to get a taxi home. Still, needless to say, I haven't seen those friends of mine since as nobody in their right mind would return to Swindon.

However, Swindon for all it's faults still can't compare with Dunstable. Dunstable is gash. I went there once when I was about 15 to stay with my friend's mum after his parents split up and we'd barely gotten out of the car before we were chased by a gang of local yobs shouting "give us a swig of your cider!" and being arrested for climbing over a garden wall trying to escape the little fuckers. Every one of my friend's mates was heavily into sniffing glue or sucking back cans of Lynx through a flannel. At least in Swindon we can get weed. Never go to Dunstable. In the words of Ripley, "I say we take off and nuke the whole area from space." What a dump.
(Bifta, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 4:33, 4 replies)

Ah D
unstable.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 4:48, closed)

The big question is...
Is Dunstable shitier than Luton?
( Bartleby A dead man on vacation, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 6:55, closed)

Yes
and no. They are part of the same sewer network though.
I had the misfortune to move freely between the two shiteholes as a sprog. Being randomly attacked in both places makes it hard for me to choose a favourite.
( Infidel , shit and wrong, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 12:14, closed)

They're pretty much the same...
I went to Luton a couple of times with my ex who lived in St Albans. The contrast between there and Luton is alarming and they're only about 5 miles apart. Luton, Dunstable, they're both appalling places and should they be on fire, I wouldn't piss on either of them.
(Bifta, Thu 5 Nov 2009, 2:25, closed)