Aberdare
Stayed here a few times mainly in the strangely pleasant Municipal campsite! It's probably the safest place in town as it's dripping with CCTV cameras?
It was only 4 years ago that a friend of mine said he'd managed to find a B&B there that was £5 a night! I can now imagine why it was so cheap!
The first time I stayed there I drove into town(thank god I didn't walk) and the least offensive stuff resembling food was the Kebab shop. Not a food I normally frequent but I was hungry. It was only about 6.30pm so the town hadn't really got close to kicking off yet and the nice guy at the kebab shop began enquiring about why I was there, where was I staying etc. Basically he was saying..."the campsite's the safest place in town for you(being english) hurry back and don't look anyone in the eye!

The campsite was fine... but only having nylon for walls does mean you can hear the distant night-long screams, baying, brawling and police sirens quite clearly!
(verynaughtyboy, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 18:23, 4 replies)

Swindon.

'nuff said.
( Turquoise Hexagon Sun has just dropped acid on, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 17:49, 3 replies)

Christmas
You can usually gauge the quality of a town by the status of the person turning on the Christmas lights. For example, in Birmingham, The Sugababes are switching them on this year.

In Cardiff, Ruth Jones and Rob Brydon are doing switching them on.

Here in Hull, no expense will be spared, as this year the job will be carried out by none other than the mayor and Santa.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 16:11, 5 replies)

Holiday
A mate of mine (and his wife) drive around Scotland for two weeks staying in B&Bs for a night or two in different towns. He's been doing this for 6 years now.

This year, they stopped over in Dingwall. He said it was like a vast sink-estate that had been displaced from a big city and dumped in north-east of Scotland.

Can anyone else back this up?
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 15:57, 3 replies)

Southend
Now for a little bit of background fluff.
Im a young man (23 if you must know) and it took me the best part of nearly 4 years to get round to passing my driving test. I just didnt see the point. When i did eventually pass my test it was the greatest thing in the world, literally I could go anywhere and it was awesome!
So after buying my first car I headed on down to the local hangout to show my friends my shiny new motor vehicle.
After spending nearly 2 hours in a McDonalds carpark doing nothing but 'chill out' and watching idiots waste petrol, I was starting to think that showing off to my mates was a waste of time and that it was time for pub.
It was at this moment in time that someone suggested southend. Now, I had never been to Southend before or even heard of it as a matter of fact but decided it was a fantastic idea because I just wanted to go for a drive. Anyway, as I arrived the first thing that you notice is the smell, its a sublte mix of fresh sea air, petrol, vomit and fried food. The next fantastic(scary) thing to assault your sences is the shear ammount of utter chav scum that converge on the seafront every saturday night to show off their car to other idiots (nearly always a second hand Subaru Impreza or Mitsubitshi evo). They all sit around eachothers car blarring the most nonsensical utter shite out of 'speakers' better suited to slowly vibrating the car into component parts.
Southend itself isnt much better than the fuckers that mob it every weekend. The 'theme park' is overprced and full of pregnant teenagers smoking lambert and butler. The food is all fried and served to you in small plastic trays, covered in so much salt that you need to order a drink thats usually about £3 a can just so you can continue to function.
I could go on but I wont... when me and my friends did go to leave we couldnt because someone had parked their Subaru behind me on double yellow lines and my best mate had the majority of his exaust system unbolted and stolen from the back of his new car...
Blackpool has been mentioned a couple of times in previous posts so all I have left to add is its much the same, just smaller and shitter and full of bigger cunts.
(gingerbollocks 'happy and content' since, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 15:40, 2 replies)

Blackpool, again
Sorry for posting about this north western hole again, but....

Took a day trip up there almost 15 years ago. 2 cars zipped up the M6. It was March or April, so still cold and grey.

A lovely day was had by all, until we got out of the cars.

I had an argument on the pier with an inbred who couldn't understand that I wanted a plain sandwich, ie no salad or mayo. Simple enough but after 4 attempts (yes, 4!) I got my money back. I was just so exasperated by his lack of intelligence- chicken, bread and butter, that's all, what's so difficult?

It was cold and windy so we were all a bit grumpy, a few tense moments all day. At one point I got so pissed off with my then girlfriend I bought a set of handcuffs from one of the classy vending machines, cuffed her to a railing and walked off. Funny now I look back but at the time I was sooooo tempted to leave her there.

We got back to the cars at the end of the day. One car wouldn't start so we pleaded poverty with a passing AA man who took pity on us and gave us a battery boost.

The other car had been broken into. Utterly trashed- stereo gone, steering column mashed to try to hotwire it, everything smashed on the dashboard. Couldn't be driven of course, so everyone but 2 piled into the other (now started but still a bit dodgy) car to drive back down to the Midlands. 2 hours or so squashed in a Montego is not fun. Everyone got dropped off then 2 others drove back to Blackpool with a trailer to collect the smashed up car.

To top off this special and memorable day, my then girlfriend decided to inform me that she was pregnant. We hadn't been together long, we were both young. Bit of a shocker. Sat there in silence all the way home.

Only bright point of this? My girl, love her to bits, she's almost 14 now.

Haven't been back to Blackpool since. Never intend going back.
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 15:10, 1 reply)

Bradford, WTF did they do to it?
Can't believe that Bradford has only had 2 mentions so far! What sort of city decides to get a brand spanking new shopping centre, pull down 2 big buildings that take up an entire corner of the centre,
lose a shed load of shops at the same time, and then let the builders delay the construction over and over again while not having the balls to tell em to jog on and find somebody who can build the thing!

Used to be quite nice (notice i said quite) but now the pound shop next door to the pound shop has it's own gathering of grazing chavs with their 3 or 4 double prams each as they swig from cans of white lightning outside the tiny greggs...

Nobody has any thought for anybody else when driving, especially the taxis and bus driver nazis who 'own' the road, the bowling and cinema complex has a gathering of kids bunking off school everyday, the centre has no decent shops. I always drive elsewhere and shop in Halifax or Birstall.
(lennyzero, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 14:14, 2 replies)

HAYES!

Utter shite hole!

I'd like to watch it burn?
(Cunning Stunt, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 14:09, 3 replies)

Welwyn Garden Shitty
Nice idea + pondscum = The town I had to grow up in.

Town centre was dying so they re-generated it by demolishing the Grade II listed railway station 'Accidentaly' and dropping a shopping nightmare/chav creche in its place. Town centre is now officially dead.

Don't try and go to the Lakes on a summer sunday unless you've invited a million far related members of your family and intend to leave your detritus to injure my dog the same evening. Fuckholes.

I remember drinking in the fine watering holes from the age of 16 to 24 with no bother. Post shopping apocalypse fights guaranteed every thursday, friday and saturday. And don't think you won't be dragged into them, there's no such thing as an innocent bystander.

Fucking Ruination. Thank god I got out when I could.
(hengushrh is found at the Dole office every second thursday, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 14:08, 1 reply)

Crap Towns I havelived in
1. Bishops Waltham
Looks nice in the town centre but there are 60s/70s ticky-tacky houses all around it, full of small minded bigots and violent chavs. There is a stagnant, fly-ridden pond in the middle which they have tried to make into a "feature".

2. Luton (several people have mentioned already - it's infamous). Just a smelly stopover place on the way to London and the locals must have the least sexy accent in the world.

3. Cwmbran. A massive, soulless housing estate.

4. The Gurnos. As above but with awful poverty problems.
(biscuitsocks random gene expression, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 14:01, 2 replies)

Parts of Belfast
Terrorists are probably in a major lot of cities in the UK, but at least in Belfast we know were they reside. Being a medical student, we get shoved to the parts of the city where the GP's practices have bars on every window and we see the medical problems which you wouldn't find in your normal GP practice.

Some memories of my time in these parts include walking alone to my practice on the Falls road (main Republican area) and seeing the PSNI (police here) speeding down the road to pick up an escaped prisoner; walking to a patient's house in the loyalist area of Windsor and going into a corner shop failing to notice the shops name, "Simply the Best" implying it was owned by the UDA. Me with my name Nevan (a protestant with an Irish name) and my female friend who had an Irish name quickly made our leave and finally getting countless abuse from making our way to the main hospital in Belfast, the Royal Victoria Hospital, from lovely chav fellows (spides as we refer to them). If I go one way, I get it from lads in Celtic tops and if I go the other I get it from lads in Rangers tops. Beautiful.

Fortunately, I have never had the shit kicked out of me and hopefully never will.
(nev, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 13:13, 1 reply)

All towns are shit.
Or not, depending on where you're from.

Braintree - My home town, bit of a dump now, but far too expensive for me to move back - not that I'd want to, the only good thing about it (apart from memories)for me is that my family live there. It's not the worst place in the world, but certainly not as nice as some of my exes used to think it was whenever we went there.

Rugby - Lived there for about 10 years all told. It's got some lovely buildings, plenty of chavs these days (but then where hasn't?), but on the whole I liked it. It's not too big, not too small, but if you want shops you're better off heading somewhere else really. People are a bit stand-offish though; in the time I was there, never really made that many friends, or even acquaintances. Pubs that I frequented never became proper locals and none of the other customers ever spoke to me.

London - Lived there for a year, liked "the fact I lived in London" and that it only took me 5 minutes to get to work, or to plenty of bars, shops, restaurants and takeaways. Hardly ever spent any weekends there though, was always somewhere else with friends, family or stuff like that. Still enjoy going back there, and because I've spent a lot of time there living and working completely fail to subscribe to the "London's really expensive for everything" creed that all my colleagues in places other than London believe.

Northampton - Lived there for about a year, it's ok. The town centre is pretty grubby, and there seemed to be a higher concentration of chavs there than previous places I've lived. Got some good friends there too, but on the whole people from Northampton seem to have a very definite mindset about them, if they have a way of doing something that they're used to, you'll never convince them to do it a new way, even if it's quicker and easier.

Derby - I've been here for a couple of years now and I like it. There are lots of people who hate it, I know. It's certainly not the prettiest place I've ever been, and some parts of it are downright ugly
/tatty/rough (delete as applicable), but there are some really nice bits too. There are loads of chavs about (but I think that the increase in chavs as I've moved from place to place has been a function of date, not location), but on the whole the people are friendly - I've got a local boozer now too, where the landlord knows my name and the other customers say "hello".

So, to recap: everywhere is shit, but most places are nice too.

(Apart from Kettering and Bracknell, I've not found anything good when I've been to them)
(Professor Kenny Martin Hmm? What?, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 13:02, 4 replies)

South Woodham Ferrers
aka South Walmart Ferrers (due to domination of Asda) officially crap according to Idler too.
Good points: man got injured by flying sausage, Magistrates the band.
Bad points: It's a soul destroying cultureless void of spray tanned chelsea tractor driving stepford wives. Full of Daily Mail readers who thought that getting a Big Issue seller lowered the tone.
( moogy boobles, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 13:00, 2 replies)

A low point in life
At one point I lived in Basingstoke and worked in Bracknell. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror.
(bellboy last hit the tit on, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 11:53, Reply)

I went to uni in Swansea.
That was my first mistake.

The night club, Quids Inn, was populated by chavs even before the word had been invented,. Little bum-fluff 'tache sporting scallies, proudly showing off their Addidas three stripes with poppers on the legs undone so all could see the bright white sports socks.

My flatmate had his car stolen 5 times in 3 years, it was a deisel, so, when the TWOCers found this out after starting the engine up, they'd dump it down the road after smashing a window or pissing on the front seat. It soon became cheaper to pay for the damage to be fixed than pay the excess and have his insurance bumbped up. It got so bad that he started leaving a canister of petrol on the back seat in the hope that the scallies would torch the car and he could make a decent claim, but instead they just nicked the canister.

We were burgled three times, once when we were in the living room next to the front door, another time the criminals nicked a couple of grands worth of electronics, a paperbag light and chiseled out the fireplace.

Singleton Park, which was the short cut to uni from town, was a haven for robberies, and, according to student legend at least, the gay rape capital of Europe.

Match days against Bristol made the town unsafe for all who spoke with an English accent, I'm just glad I left before Swansea were promoted into Cardiff's division. Apparentl those matches were hell on earth.

The catalogue of injuries my friends had inflicted upon them were enough to make you think twice about going out. One lost an eye to a beating from the rugby club. Another sliced the tendons on his hands trying to climb a wall topped with glass to get away from a group of taxi drivers.

All in all, they were not the best days of my life, I ended up pretty much a recluse with a terrible weed habit.

But, looking on the bright side, at leaast it wasn't Port Talbot. *shudders*

Length? Three long and wet years.
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 11:39, 2 replies)

Rubbish Towns
I work over in Blackburn, and I've never seen a more squalid, grime looking hell hole in my life. As i approach the station on the train each morning i go past rows of terrace houses, closed down pubs, gangs of chavs and dogshit ridden streets.

The town centre is a joke and is still stuck in the 70's, and after 5pm the places closes down with no entertainment for the brain dead racists that live there. I hate it I wish it would be knocked down and made into a car park.
(ralphy, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 10:58, 2 replies)

Huntly
Approx 20 minutes north of the throbbing metropolis of Hamilton lies Huntly. Although it is on State Highway One and has the only two sets of stoplights in a 158km stretch, it could be aptly described as the place people accelerate to avoid. Its full of bogans and other like minded individuals. And until two years ago I never knew there was a slightly more upmarket (read: less shabby) side of the town across the river.

Its just another small NZ town that still hasn't quite gotten over the downturn in the 70s, followed by the downturn of the 80s, nor the downturn of the 90s, and more recently the financial crisis of last year. The largest construction in the town is a sign for a lower-class department store that closed down about 18 years ago. Outside the town, its the twin stacks of the power station, itself a prime example of the McDonalds Baroque style of architecture.

The town flooded in 1998, and the general feeling was the town had never looked so good.
Earlier this year the town was advised by an official leaflet drop that their inorganic rubbish collection (a yearly fixture) was to happen within a week. Result - within 2 days the entire town looked like the dustys had been on strike for the last 10 years. Only problem was - it was a hoax by some clever buggers. Townsfolk refused to take their rubbish back in, so the council had to run an inorganic.

Length - you can pass through in 5 minutes if the lights are with you and you aren't stuck behind an early 80s Commodore doing 40k....
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Sun 1 Nov 2009, 8:35, 1 reply)

South Oxhey
Sort-of suburb of Watford.
built in the 1940s to house soldiers and such after the war. They had to build it in such a way that it couldn't be seen by any of the posher neighbours.
The BBC recently described it as 'forlorn' in the blurb for the choir program. I would have complained but then 'we' managed to elect a BNP councillor. I no longer write my full address.

Sorry it's not funny.
(Spill, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 2:55, Reply)

Two Spring to Mind
I've been to a few British towns in the last few years for various reasons. The two I never want to see again are:

Doncaster:
It smells.
Every other building is a rancid kebab shop (possibly why it smells, I don't know).
Almost every time I've been I've seen fights. The very first time I went it was Tramps At War. They were fighting over a football. One claimed victory by chundering on it.

Derby:
It smells.
Everyone has a mental handicap and apparently needs 5p for the phone.
For some reason, they pronounce 'cold' as 'code'. Possibly due to aforementioned mental handicaps.
They all aspire to move to Nottingham. See notes on mental handicap above.
Basically, I've become convinced that Derby is a massive day care centre of some sort.

Another honourable mention goes to Rotherham- Tango is not one of your five-a-day, you fat cunt!
(pharmatron Death or Scunthorpe? CHOOSE!!, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 1:29, 5 replies)

I spent a year
living in Goatse. Very spacious, but what a shithole.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 1:19, Reply)

Canterbury*
*Actually a B&B about 7 miles out of town, but I had to try and make this post relevant to the question.
Back in 1998 Mrs Spicious and I decided to spend a long weekend somewhere pleasant and touristy. Having never been there, we chose Canterbury.
Now, from what we saw of it, the city itself looked quite nice. Fairly well behaved and historically interesting. However, the B&B we stayed at, well...


Firstly we got incredibly lost trying to find it in those pre-SatNav days. Eventually came across it by chance, miles from anywhere, it was a large, single storey building rooted in a sizeable grey plot of land, disparate to the pleasant countryside that surrounded it.
We parked up and walked in, the bar/reception was on the immediate right upon entering. In the bar was a guy on his own, the standard barfly 'local'. About fifty, emaciated with brandy blackened teeth and tobacco yellowed skin. He ignored us, his rheumy eyes fixed on the grubby glass of spirits in his hand. We stood at the unnatended bar for about five minutes before a woman of about the same age appeard. We told her who we were and that we had a room booked for a couple of nights. She greeted us with staged warmth and told us our room was "Being prepared"


Fair enough, I ordered two pints of lager and two large whiskys. As much as this place hadn't impressed so far, the £7.60 charge for the drinks cheered me. After one more round, we was told our room were ready. We was lead from the bar, past the outside toilet block, down a corridor of peeling beige paint and into our bedroom. Door closed we saw that our room had cobwebs covering everything - I know, even the best kept houses have cobwebs, but INSIDE the kettle and UNDER the bed?! The window originally had two curtains, only one was left so we tried to work out where the early summer sunrise would strike first and cover that half. The door to the room bore the splintered scarring of many previous locks that had been 'forcibly' removed. The room was painted in the same peeling beige as the hallway that lead to it, only with the addition of sporadic splashes of sticky 'brown'. The sink also had a charming 'tarry' quality.

"Fuck it", I thought, a bed's a bed. We decided to have another drink, so we ambled up the grim corridor and ordered at the bar. In the short time we'd been unpacking and trying to get comfortable, the place had filled with locals. It was comparable to a scene from Deliverance, only with slightly less teeth and possibly a greater threat of anal rape. I suggested that we order our drinks and have them in our room to minimise risk. (I promise you this isn't exagerated for comic effect, the place really did have that kind of menace hanging about it)

Whilst ordering our drinks, the landlady who served us earlier explained that she was the co-owner along with her husband, the soak who had ignored us when we arrived. She told us that they took turns behind the bar. Tonight she "Was working, so he'd get pissed, tommorow he was working, so it would be her turn" classy, eh? We got our drinks and started heading back to our room, when passing the toilet block we heard the co-owning husband talking loudly, trying to placate one of the locals in one of the toilet stalls:
"Larry, I'm sorry, I tried my best"
"Fuck off, Nathan"
"Please! We're mates!" (The tone was pitiful and scared, very high pitched in that fearful way)
"Cunt!" (Back before that word was fashionable)
Larry then proceeded to start landing heavy blows about Nathan's person.

Now, I'm not a brave man, but if there's one thing that brings out the small reserves of courage I do possess, it's bullies. I rapidly escorted Mrs Spicious to our room and headed back down the corridor. Returning to the toilets, I pushed the door open and found the barfly and large local who had, minutes before, been beating him embracing and pledging forgivness to each other... Fair enough. Dumb, but sorted. I went back to our room.


All was well for about two hours. We read our books (No TV in the room, no problem... for short periods) and decided to get some sleep as it was midnight and we wanted to get out early to explore the town the next day. A few minutes after I turned off the light, the people occupying the next room turned up. The sheen of brown, mucoid-like spatterings on the walls were probably the closest thing this shit-hole had to sound insulation, so for about an hour we listened to the three tragic men who had hired the two prostitutes in the next room talking loudly about what they were into. It turns out that the guy who talked loudest had fetishes for bikinis and flip-flops. We then listened to the three fellas tell the women what to do whilst they tugged off.

Don't get me wrong, I'm probably more pervy than you, and what they were doing didn't offend me at all, it's just the fact that they were so loud. Well, I AM British, damn it!

My patience ran out and in an unusal act of bravado I banged on their door a few times and, when opened, told them to keep it down a bit.

The next morning we got up and decided to have a try and wash off the ambient grime. The one shower room had a window that had been smashed, leaving anyone having a shower exposed from the pelvis up. O.K. for me, but Mrs Spicious felt a little conspicuous with her upper charms on display. Still, they're bloody fantastic, so it probably made someone's day. There was also a lovely collection of dead spiders acting as a carpet to the floor of the shower room.

For hydration purposes we chose orange juice at the bar before leaving to get the train into Canterbury and explore the city. Whilst having our fruit juices, the landlady (it was her day off, so therefore already on the G&T's) aplogised for the disturbance the night before and explained that a few locals rented it out as a brothel. Only a few minutes later the two ladies from the night before walked past in just their see-through pants, bras and lime green fishnet stockings. It was 9:30am. Gotta say though, this sight didn't offend me.

We got back about 5pm and went straight to our room. The room next to us had music playing loudly. We wanted a nap before the evening's adventures... After a couple of hours, the music hadn't shut down, so we mentioned it to the barman/co-owner/landlord (His facial bruising wasn't too severe after the toilet beating the night before) and he ambled down with us to the room. He had the master key and just before unlocking it said to himself "I hope another one hasn't died". He wasn't joking.

That evening the local biker gang had their monthly meet in the bar (We was told that they "Are O.K., they take care of their own problems. If anyone needs dealing with, they always take them off the premises.") I walked into the bar and got a few drinks for us to have in our room. The combination of bikers and 'normal' locals created a scene comparable to a fleshy, pink version of 'From Dusk 'Til Dawn' only with more ASDA shaped bodies and JD Sports clothing.
We left early the next day only to break down on a blind corner on the busiest stretch of the A3 in a car with a one star NCAP rating.
Sorry to write such a long, uninteresting story, but if anyone made it this far, I thank you for your perseverance and, if we ever meet, I will buy you a pint. :o)
Ta.
( sir_spicious2000 Crap I've watched: www.filmplop.blogspot.com/, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 1:03, 6 replies)

Barnsley: it's like the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and '00s never happened
I've lived in Barnsley pretty much all my life. It's rubbish, but I love it. I say "all my life" - I spent 3 years away in York at uni getting more of a cultural education than an academic one. You see...

When I'd come home from uni after experiencing life in a different part of Yorkshire (why would I want to go anywhere else?), it struck me why I like it. It's like going back in time...

I took a local girl out on a date earlier this year. I say "girl," she was 26. We'd have a fab night on the tarn and we were ready to come home. Walked out of the pub (we don't really do bars or clubs) and flagged down a taxi. She turned to me and said "You've just stopped that taxi for us?" sounding all surprised. Yes: turns out she'd never seen somebody flag down a taxi, having lived in Barnsley for 26 years, where everybody, sort of, stands in queues waiting for them.

And then my mates dragged me along to a gay night in a pub one night. We don't have gay clubs: not enough gays. Anyways, got there; standing outside having a fag. Bloke comes up and starts talking to me about how he'd not seen me before. Hmm... Carries on; "Yeah, I'm not gay. I just like coming here cos everybody's so friendly. Yeah, I've got a girlfriend..." And then the same happened again. And again. Barnsley: it's still not cool to openly admit that you're gay here. Or be black. Or Asian... Unless you work in an Indian/Chinese takeaway. Odd but true. Even shop-keeping, taxi driving - the racially-stereotypical jobs - are done by middle aged white men.

And then alcohol... Alcohol. People drink alcohol constantly. Soft drinks are for women and children. There was a bit in the news recently about how the teachers at a school in tarn had been concerned that parents had cans of beer in hand as they dropped their kids off at school... And then when they picked them up again. Nobody but the teachers thought anything about it. When Georgi Hristov joined Barnsley, he said "Our women are much prettier. Besides, they don't drink as much beer as the Barnsley girls which is something I don't like at all." I think the thing to add to this is that Barnsley women have a generic orange glow. I kinda like it. I digress. Everybody here's a marginal alcoholic and most people are smokers, but nobody uses drugs. Oh no. They haven't been invented here yet.

And you hear the most amazing conversations when sitting in the pub. Nowhere else have I heard things like this (where everybody else could hear and nobody batted an eyelid):
"Kelly, sleep with us?"
"No, I can't. I'm seeing somebody."
"Ah go on. We never did it when we were together."
"I've told you. I can't."
"Please."
"Fine. Well I'll give you my number. Text me later."

But, best of all, people talk to people. If you're standing at a bus stop or waiting for a train, you always end up talking to somebody. You can go to the pub on your own and, even if you know nobody, you'll never drink alone. And you can smile at people as you pass them in the street without worrying about being stabbed or mugged. It's nice.

So Barnsley... It's like going back in time; it really is rubbish. But I fucking love it and I think everybody should spend a week here at least once in their lives.
(mr major no thanks, I don't use the horse, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 0:13, 6 replies)

Rob Manuel conversation
When Rob was setting up B3ta he said it was a place he wanted people to come to to have a laugh and asked me about his 'top tips' section - and if it was a rip off.

My advice was he should do a site that wasn't an awful place but shouldn't Viz it.




Sorry.
(prescottsflu infected you at, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 0:04, Reply)

Port Talbot Joke
"I saw my mate the other day, asked him what he had been up to "Went to Port Talbot" said he "?" said I, "Met this girl in a bar, bought her a drink, got chatting, anyhow we went to my car and was getting down to it when she said "kiss me where it smells", so I drove her to Port Talbot"
(micmac is happy as a pig in shite, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 22:38, 1 reply)

Hastings, NZ
I emigrated to Napier 5 years ago. Napier was flattened by an earthquake in 1931, and they rebuilt it in an Art Deco style, so architecturally its really interesting, and as small towns go its a nice place to live. Napier has an evil twin, however;

Hastings.

This is a planned town, planned without soul or charm. Think long roads with industrial warehouses selling forklift trucks or hoses for bloody miles, until you hit town, which is full of little shops trying to be big shops, and a K Mart "plaza".

It also full of Mongrel Mob, morons scaring little old ladies via the use of hard stares and dark glasses. My Kiwi mates tell me that more violent offenders come from Hastings than anywhere else in NZ, considering Hastings is smaller than Gorseinon, that's quite an achievement.

There is no cultural life here. Roll into Hastings at 7 on a Saturday and you will not see a single person on the town. Everyone is in Napier, because Hastings as achieved the impossible, being both mind numbingly boring and terrifying.

I grew up in Swansea, so I know about shitholes, but Hastings is just awful.
(micmac is happy as a pig in shite, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 22:05, 2 replies)

skem
otherwise known as skelmersdale. it's like a giant roundabout. the harder you try to get out, the deeper in you're pulled. the locals make the folk of royston vasey look normal. the smartest man there was beaten at draughts by a conker.
my mates and i like to call it smeg. it seems appropriate.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 21:46, 11 replies)

Watford
Which I like to pronounce as 'Grotford'. Nothing like walking around the town centre on a Saturday and seeing the sites. People with wooden legs, huge fatties outside Greggs chomping on steak bakes, chavs of all forms and the drunks outside moons at 11am half cut already. Scope the charity shop is very popular.

Was actually there today. They decided to get all cultural by having a Morris dancing dance off.
(Headsbollockskuntz, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 21:19, Reply)

Glad someone mentioned Telford....
Really is a blot on the map and is the poorest relative of the whole of Shropshire. Endless industrial estates and home to many inbred chavs who enjoy shopping at Iceland dressed head to toe in Kappa. They should just be done with it and blow the bloody place up. Other notable crapholes include:- Highley in Shropshire,(the fact that they all sing "Highley born and Highley bred, strong in the heart and thick in the head" with pride explains a lot, Rhyl (no further comments needed), Low Hill in Wolverhampton, Bilston in Wolverhampton (family who I no longer speak to, so may be biased... no scrub that, it is a tip) and Weston Super Mare (although happy hols there as a kid)
(Pumba Look for the red flashing light again... no!!!!!, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 21:04, 5 replies)