oh the shame
I was born and grew up in Barnsley (my therapist says that just admitting to this is a big step). I lived there until I was 18 when I moved away to university and now live in Paris.

About four years after moving here, I met the current Mr Smellen. Not long after we got together, we were having drinks with some of his friends when one of them said:

"Smellen, you did say that you came from a town called Barnsley, didn't you"
"I may have done. Why?"
"You really need to watch the repeat of the programme I saw last night"

Nothing more was said. Video recorder was set for 2.30am repeat.

The said programme turned out to be a piece of televisual toss called 'live my life' in which people are sent to live for a few days with someone they wouldn't usually get along with (black activists with KKK members, catholic priests in abortion clinics, you get the picture) with "hilarious" and "thought-provoking" results. Crap. But. This particular episode saw a French rugby fan from Bordeaux who claimed to hate the English sent to my home town for the weekend. Oh dear.

Most of the programme was quite tame. A trip to the driving range. An "amusing" incident in the market when he was sent to buy marmite and ended up in a clothes shop (although the bloke in the shop was a bit of a tosser, pretending not to understand what the French man was saying, asking him if he was looking for a mermaid). Full fried breakfasts were consumed. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Then, it was time for the pub crawl. Oh god the pub crawl.

The prime of Barnsley womanhood was dressed to the nines and out on the pull. The pooor bloke was manhandled and molested in every pub. As the evening went on, more and more drunken women grabbed onto his neck screaming "gizzasnogfroggy".

Then came the high point of the evening. As the clubs kicked out and the masses headed to the nearest kebab shop, one particularly well-built young woman saw the TV camera and did the only thing she could do. She bent over, pulled up her (already far too short) skirt and flashed her white flabby arse at the camera.

Mr Smellen's friends have never looked at me in the same way since.

Now I tell people I'm from "near Sheffield".
(ellen smellen, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 11:24, Reply)