The crap town test...
Over the summer my mate Steve and I were pissing about in a beer garden up in Archway. Steve had just been to the DIY store to pick up some gear, I’d just been to Iceland to get in a few supplies. So, we’re sat there with our respective carrier bags, looking all cool, sipping at a pint, when Steve comes up with an idea to test his theory that Archway was – as he puts it – “a fucking ultimate crapola of a craphole.”

Steve fishes into his bag, pulls out a tube of superglue, he then asks me for a quid.

“Fuck off!” I say. So he gets out a quid of his own. Steve then applies a liberal amount of sticky goo to the Queen’s face (something most of us would like to do, I’m sure), strolls out into the middle of the pavement and plants the cash down firmly. Stands on it. Stands on it a bit more. Walks back to our bench.

Then we wait: “Let’s see how many scummy fuckers try and pick that cunt up in the next half an hour.” I started to point out that I – and I’m sure most people – would pick up a quid if they saw it on the ground. But Steve wasn’t having any of it. This was, according to Steve, a tried and tested way to work out the scum quota for an area.

We sat. We waited. I had a bit of a nibble on the corner of a bacon quiche I had in my Iceland bag. It was a Sunday lunchtime. A pretty quiet time in Archway. Eventually a rather scraggly looking gentleman approached. He’d been loitering while Steve acted the twat and performed his impromptu ‘street art’ performance. This fella looked a bit… well… dodgy… I could feel Steve tense as if someone had just jabbed their thumb up his arse and wiggled it from side to side. This was it – the moment of truth…

But the fella ignored the pound as it sat there all shiny and golden in the bright early afternoon sun. I could feel Steve deflate. I was about to say something along the lines of: “well, they’re all fine upstanding members of society round here,” when I realized the scummy looking lad had continued his Mr Softy lanky gait and was now stood just in front of us. Steve and I looked up as this dodgy looking youth jammed his hand deep in his pocket to make it look as if he had a weapon of some sort and screamed: “GIVE US ALL YER FUCKIN’ MONEY!!!”

Steve and I just stared. Eventually, feeling a little freaked out, the lad legged it. We sat and finished our pints, shaking. We shared a cigarette. Eventually Steve said: “Think we’ll stick to Tufnell Park in future…”

Just a word of advice – don’t glue currency to pavements in dodgy areas. People will assume – quite incorrectly in our case – that if someone can afford to do that, they’ve probably got pockets brimming with loads of lovely, lovely, moolah…
( SpankyHanky, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 17:22, 4 replies)

York
Inhabited by pompous, arrogant and for the most part racist types. I had the misfortune of working there for a year. Now don't get me wrong the centre is very nice, the Minster, the Shambles etc. The rest is just the same as everywhere else i.e council estates, industrial estates blah de blah.

But for some reason the residents of York feel some kind of superiority like it the capital of Yorkshire, it isn't. Its like Harrogate the arse end of the nowhere and there is no real reason to visit, unless your a Japanese or American tourist. Overpriced shops to match the over inflated and bloated residents. In fact its kinda like Chester I guess, but without the wags.

Nuff said, the place just got on my tits and I never want to go back (I live about 15 miles from there).
( p4c_m4n There, I said it!, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 16:45, 3 replies)

Manchester
been there twice. Both times it rained constantly, everyone seemed miserable and the weed was shite.

And the rain is no excuse frankly, it pisses it down in Liverpool but they still know how to have a good time..
( Finite "Aardvark sorted out my shit!" on, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 16:38, 1 reply)

Sudbury, Suffolk
I actually quite like it, but it is rather dull. To the extent that the local paper was forced to run with the front page headline "Dead dog found floating in river".

The story expanded on this - someone in the town had found a dead dog, floating down the river. Oh wait, did I say 'expanded'?
( MatJ LOOK, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 15:08, 5 replies)

SunderLOLand!
rofl
(likeajackhammer, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 14:56, Reply)

Cairo
I do feel kind of guilty about slagging off a country that isn’t my own, but to hell with it: Cairo is one of the crappiest places I’ve ever been. It was responsible for several near-death experiences, marriage proposals, explosive diarrhoea and riding Michael Jackson - and let‘s face it, not many people over the age of 12 can say that.

Crappiness started pretty much as soon as I stepped off the plane, when I was relieved of my passport by a humourless security guard, and met a woman in the toilets who wouldn’t pull her pants back up until I gave a dollar. But the real nightmare started when I emerged from the terminal building and tried to get a taxi to my lodgings. I was befriended by a middle-aged man called Mahmoud, who said he would do me special price. Once in his car, I quickly ascertained that Mahmoud drove like a bloody lunatic, as did everybody in this God-forsaken hellhole. Cars zig-zagged wildly across the roads at hundreds of miles per hour, beeping and cursing at one another. At one point, Mahmoud turned around - actually physically turned around in his seat - and said, “You and your friends want to go to Giza, see pyramids? I do you special price!” I nodded enthusiastically - anything to keep his eyes on the road. Then he took his hands off the wheel altogether, leaned over, reached into the glove compartment for a pen and paper, and began writing down his number for me whilst still doing a good 80mph, weaving in and out of traffic by operating the steering wheel with his elbows. There was one fortuitous thing about this: I was wearing brown trousers at the time.

A couple of days later, we did indeed visit the pyramids, driven by someone other than Mahmoud thank goodness. When we arrived there we were accosted by a gentleman who told us that the pyramids were closed (WTF?) but that he had horses for hire so that we could ride into the desert, which was the best way of getting as close as possible. We knew he was bullshitting, but then again, we love horses so we decided to take him up on the offer. I mounted my horse, whose name was Michael Jackson, bent down to adjust my stirrups, and discovered that I couldn’t because my tack was held together with bits of string. One of the tour guides simply came up to me, unpicked the knots, and tied them back together with the stirrups at the right length for my short-ass legs. Christ on a bike. Then we set off. One of the tour guides took a bit of a liking to me, so I told him I was spoken for and hoped that that would be the end of it. On the contrary, he said, “Ah, but your boyfriend isn‘t here…” and just wouldn’t leave me alone. To my complete horror, he managed to herd me away from the rest of the group, despite my protestations that I wanted us all to stick together. It was beginning to get dark, and I was alone in the desert with this strange creepy man, riding a horse with tack held together by bits of string. Then he said he had something to show me. “Please let that not be what I think it is…” I thought, but since I was alone with him and hadn’t a clue how to get back, I had no choice but to follow him. He led me down to the Great Pyramid, where we dismounted, and led me towards a cave. “Come in here…” he beckoned. “Erm, no thanks,” I said. This went on for a while. Then I decided I was going to have to take charge of the situation, grow some balls, and be assertive. “I am not getting into that cave. I want to get back on my horse, and I want you to lead me back to the others,” I said firmly. I meant business. I congratulated myself on my assertive tone as I strode back towards the horses. I wouldn’t be having any more trouble from him.

WRONG!

Next thing I knew, he’d shoved me against a wall and was trying to rip my clothes off. What the poor little man didn’t know was that I’m a black belt in taekwondo. I managed to dig my elbow rather hard into his solar plexus, got him with a killer backfist strike to the temple, leaped onto Michael Jackson and galloped off into the sunset, giggling maniacally. Mercifully the string held together and I didn’t plunge to my death. Then he caught up with me and asked me to marry him. Interesting approach.

But still, apart from the constant harrassment and groping, the stinking exhaust fumes, the noise, the stale cigarette smoke, the dirt and dust, everything else went fairly smoothly until the last day. We’d been staying in a very run-down hotel, where the only member of staff apart from the manager was an octogenarian who didn’t look as if he could lift a feather, let alone a suitcase. I had, of course, had diarrhoea for the entire trip, and this day was no exception. As I was about to get into the lift with said octogenarian and my suitcase, I was hit with sudden and violent stomach cramps. I excused myself and ran to the nearest bathroom, where I stayed, groaning and splattering for a good 20 minutes. When I emerged, white and shaking, the wizened old man was standing there impassively, holding a now-tepid cup of tea. “You are ill. I make you tea.” he said. I realised, to my complete horror, that he’d been standing there listening to me shitting my guts out for the last half hour or so. His poker face didn’t register the tiniest twitch - he’d obviously seen (heard and smelled) it all before.

These were the three most memorable incidents from my week-long stay in Cairo, but the whole trip was basically a string of near-death experiences on the roads, harrassment and groping, and diarrhoea. All things I can do without. No apologies for length - your mum loves it.
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 14:42, 5 replies)

Another nomination for Luton
Ah, Luton a pestilent, foaming boil of a town that clings to the perpetual traffic jam otherwise known as the M1.

I feel that I should provide some context here by qualifying my choice - I spent my formative years with Newport as the nearest large town to us and thus is was the scene of all my youthful binge drinking and suchlike. Newport is a place that gets slagged off by people from Coventry. Think about that for a moment and bear in mind this very salient fact while I use my severely limited writing ability to try and paint you a picture that conveys even the merest hint of the horrors that lie in wait for you should you end up living in Luton.

Through a combination of laziness, apathy and naievety (well, laziness to be honest) I decided to go to Luton and do a computer science degree, figuring that by attending a crap uni I could do the absolute minimum of actual work, focusing instead on the vital activity of drinking and still stroll away from there with a degree. I was almost right. It soon became apparent that I had a grave miscalculation, because Luton is miserable shitpit where the only possible escape from the relentless assault of negativity and depression that the place inspires is to be found in drink and drugs. Quite aside from being a concrete monstrosity dominated by the sort of 60s town planning and architectural features that result in grotty Arndale shopping centres, concrete tower block, enormous piss filled multi-story car parks all thrown together with the sort of care and attention to usual associate with ADHD raddled children trying to use lego it was a town ravaged by poverty (tahnks Vauxhall!) and racial tension. Never before or since I have lived somewhere where there was such an atmosphere of simmering resentment, and despair. The resultant violent crime statistics told their own story, as did the bi-annual gang fight that always seemed to break out outside one the towns two large nightclubs. If you imagine the levels of chav-dom, crime and general scumminess inherent in whatever you chosen shite-town is and multiply it a few times then you'll come close to beginning to understand the putrid boil that is Luton.

The place should be nuked from space, it's ashes gathered up and fired into the sun and entire area cordoned off for several centuries. The sole redeeming feature of the place was a curry house called Meahs - but even that isn't enough to save it.
(barnaby_kettleworth, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 14:24, 5 replies)

I was prepared to spend twenty minutes pointing out how Nottingham is shit...
But I've just seen a muslim woman/girl/transvestite (hard to tell) in an all black, full body bhurka with a pair of tatty red converse trainers.

Nottingham IS shit, but it isn't that shit. Because we have stylish Muslims!
( Muns, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 12:58, 5 replies)

Nuneaton
I really have no idea where to start. It's one of those towns where the names for the suburbs have fallen into popular use as people would rather have Weddington on their driving licence than Nuneaton. The one way system is a mystery to all but the crack-addled transport planner, the fountain is full of KFC wrappers and sick and quite frankly, any town of that size with more than one branch of Claire's is not to be trusted.
(Puddle of Sugar was still wallpapering on, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 12:42, 2 replies)

Chicago
Well, to be honest, just the airport.

The staff there were the rudest, surliest bunch I've ever met. Every one of them - and we spent a good while there, on way to and from San Francisco, and had plenty of paying and non-paying interactions - made me feel like delivering a punch on the nose and shouting 'What's your problem? Piles? Like me to kick them back up your arse for you?'

Are Chicago people generally like that, I wonder? The San Francisco airport staff were like the nicer nuns from The Sound Of Music by comparison.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 12:08, 8 replies)

Newark...
The only town in Britain that's an anagram of "Wanker"
(libraryboy Cheer up, you could be french!, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 12:03, 2 replies)

Spalding
Had to go there for business. Got there before it opened, which appeared to be around 9:30. There were lovely pedestrianised bits, with pavers 'n all.

Trouble was last night was visible all over the town centre. A pavement pizza here, a discarded badly packed kebab there. Plus groups of overweight 70's clothing models wandering round. Probably related, looking at the similar facial features. Maybe even family groups, or neighbours. Grunting and shuffling about.

Not many genes in Spalding.
(fer fer fer fer fer fer, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 11:58, 2 replies)

maidenhead
It's not too bad really, only been a mugged a couple of times, but that was probably my fault for hanging round with the wrong people - well there wasn't a lot else to do.

It's famed either for having lots of chavs, or lots of rich people, but it's probably in the middle - just like anywhere else really.

Rolf Harris isn't exactly the nicest guy ever.

At least it's easy to get to London or Reading (which I love, despite what other people say).

But there is one inevitable consequence of living in Maidenhead - on field trips from college, or in a pub, everyone passes round their ID to look at the picture. No one laughs at my picture - it's a perfectly good picture - one of the only times my hair stayed straight for 6 minutes! Instead they laugh at my place of birth 'Slough' *cries*
(deadly_sinners, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 11:43, Reply)

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)

Swindon
I spend a lot of time driving along the M4, at least once a week I do London - Cardiff and back. I've never worked out why but around Swindon it always seems to be coldest and the smell is horrendous.
Last night i did a delivery there to an insurance company. When I got there at 8.45pm the 70+ year old security guard greeted with with a not very cheerful 'what the fuck do you want?'. He then told me he was paid to sit there and take deliveries till 9pm but didn't like c##ts turning up bothering his evenings.
(Sickpup, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 10:33, Reply)

Athens, Georgia
30 shops in the town centre, all selling variations on a theme of kitch-shit.

Adverts saying 'Evolution makes a monkey out of you and me - Creationism' and 'Jesus Christ is Coming' and 'McCain/Palin' all over town.

A bus service that can take you to either the shittier of the two Wal-Marts, or a shopping centre that makes Peterborough city cemetary look lively and upbeat.

A university which has more than 30,000 students, and is thus best known for its American football team - not for its academic excellence.

30,000 students, of whom roughly 75% have more money than grey matter, and who belong to the myriad sororities and fraternities that line the streets in the wealthy end of town - but since they are students, they don't pay city tax.

Consequently, one of the poorest towns in the South - with massive, dreary, depressing, 'Projects', full of hopeless looking kids, armed to the teeth, and just watching listlessly as the rich white kids swan about in their personalised numberplated SUVs.

But the worst and most utterly rubbish thing about this town - by a long long way - it's dry on sundays. Until you have tried to live in the Deep South, you will never know the full horror of not being able to get a drink on an endless Sunday in November.
( ascorbate, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 10:31, 5 replies)

Second chance
I grew up in a one horse town, where the horse is a donkey and the donkey is dead. For 18 years I dreamed about getting the hell out of the place and into a bigger, wider world where there were things like traffic lights and cappuccinos - the sort of things other people take for granted when they don't live in a neglected fishing village on the coast of Norn Iron where the only thing to do is drink 'til you're drowning if the sea doesn't get you first.

I grew up with everyone knowing my business. Nothing passed unnoticed in that place. The height of towering ambition was to marry someone who wasn't your cousin and build on your dad's back field. My aim was to get my driving licence and fuck off into the sunset, not that driving west would get me further than the edge of the Atlantic.

For anyone furious that civil liberties are being eroded in our CCTV society, I can assure you that London is liberatingly anonymous when compared to the village gossip network. Where I'm from, if they have no dirt on you they'll make it up. What else is there to do to pass the time when the 11 pubs are shut and there's only three buses a day out of the place?

I left and I swore I'd limit my returns. I'd go there dutifully once or twice a year to see the parents and give the neighbours something to talk about. Then, a couple of years ago, I went back because I was setting off with an old friend on a charity trip. We coincided the launch with the village carnival. I watched as my mate talked to the people we'd grown up with. I saw folks from my past step forward, unsolicited, to hand us cheques and equipment, cash by the handfuls, and to wish us well. Their generosity was overwhelming and their kindness was contagious. The gossip network that had terrorised my youth was the same one that spread the word that there was a good cause to be supported. I stood with a collecting bucket at the tractor show, knee deep in churned up mud amidst 30 amateur line dancers, listening to appalling country and western as familiar faces came up to talk to us, congratulate us and give us words of encouragement. I felt like I'd stumbled into The Waltons. We drove out of town with a thousand people clapping and cheering us on our way and for the first time ever I was really proud of where I came from.

It is a shit hole though. But it's not as bad as the next village over. They don't even have a pub.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 10:11, 14 replies)

Bad Schandau
Never heard of it?
Neither had I until I was unceremoniously dumped there at 1am, many years ago. It may be an alright place, but not by my experience....

(SFX: Wavy lines....)
May 1995 - whilst on a trip to take his uncle back to Croatia during the war (another story), Sebulba had decided to re-visit the former capital of the Reich to see how things had changed in the intervening 3 years since he was last there.

After a few days, I then decided to visit Vienna. The shortest distance between the two cities is via Prague, and duly bought an overnight train ticket.

The Czech border guards get on two stations up from the border, so they can biff off anyone that doesn't have the right stamps in the old passport at the last station in Germany.

Which was Bad Schandau. And no-one told me I needed a transit Visa....
As myself, two bags, and a cavalry sabre watched the train head off into the distance, I took a look at my surroundings. One station waiting room and inside were 4 sleeping, farting drunks. Outside was about -2 degrees.
Oh joy.

Judging by the graffiti in a myriad of languages, I wasn't the only one caught out this way. One wall was a veritable Tower of Babel, mostly questioning the parentage or night-time jobs of the Czechs generally, with liberal mention of the rectal cavity.

But in Paris I had 'acquired' a Thomas Cook Rail Timetable, and so I knew when a train was due to head back into Germany.
When it stopped, I jumped it and hid in a darkened carriage and got back to Dresden. Where I spent a further 5 hours freezing my ass off until I could get a ticket to Zurich.

Length - 2 hours in a room rapidly filling with methane. Eych....
(Sebulba continues to fight evil with evil....., Wed 4 Nov 2009, 9:52, Reply)

Chester
What a shlep magnet! Went for a week end when a few friends came down from Scotland. 1st night got jump by 6 old men for......... nothing really, I was eating chips so that may have put them in a rage. The next night a chav about 14 proceeded to call my friend a pretty boy faggot. He did have the decency to tell me he was with about 7 meat heads so as he put it "Not 2 night lad, my crew are in". Leaving the bar we started talking to 2 old slappers, next thing theres a fight in the street, the 14 year old lad. I say's thats the prick who was kicking off. 1 of the old slappers then stands up as says don't call my son a prick. Didn't stop her coming back to my mates flat. Sat in there her phones starts going off. The son is on the other end calling his mum all sorts "you fucking slag, goin off shaggin kids!!!". I then did the decent thing, took the phone off her and very calmly said "Don't worry, we'll get her back in 1 peace''. It didn't go down to well with him ha. I didn't go there with her, let my friend to play the sex lotto. My point is its a shit hole, fight club, slag style arm pit of the northwest.
(zee3chi, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 9:47, Reply)

I don't know where Swindon is
I was born there 31 years ago, spent all of 4 weeks there before moving away to Hampshire. Through out my long life I have never come to know in geographic terms where the place is. I then decided that it would be a good idea to never know where it is and avoided all covnersations relating to the location of this mystical place, television programs etc. This was helped in part by the fact I lived in Germany for the 10 years. I hear that Mark Le Mar comes from there though. The various conversations I've nearly over heard suggest that its grey and full of non sense road lay outs and round abouts.
(TwinkleFuckingToes Has a ingrown toe nail, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 9:16, 2 replies)

Making another nomination for Swindon
Despite it being the pinnacle of steam at one point, and managing to give Oasis their name at another point, Swindon has to be a complete shithole of a town. The chav population, the slags, the sheer dreariness of the town, the lack of any decent monument or anything vaguely interesting apart from the steam railway museum (which is good for about an hour or two, depending on your attention span), the conniving evil bastardness that is both the Magic Roundabout and the one way system and general cuntishness of the pedestrianised areas, plus as has been previously mentioned, a general atmosphere and feeling of wrongness manage to make up Swindon.

Guaranteed, on any episode of a cops-with-cameras type show, there will be at least one clip from Swindon, if not the occasional outright "Swindon Special". Which is actually quite impressive considering that Swindon packs the vast majority of its pubs and clubs into two streets which form a T junction, whereas most other large towns and cities spread their pubs and clubs over the place.

Please avoid this shithole. You really don't need to do your time here in Swindon if you're a vaguely good person.
(Ghost Atreides enjoying incontestable health benefits on, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 4:09, Reply)

Paris...
I've only been there on three occasions but EVERY SINGLE TIME the locals are so deliberately cunty I've wound up in a massive argument.
And no, I'm not playing the rude tourist, yes, I've made an effort to learn at least some French and no I don't go with a pre-prepared attitude.
The first time I asked at a cafe where I could find a bank.
The waiter had already established that he spoke perfect English after I stumbled through "Un cafe sil vous plait?" and he replied "will that be white coffee or black and takeaway or to have here?"
He directed me, very cleary, to the building across the square with two glass doors and a clock over them. Inside that building they explained patiently and generously they were a jeweller, the bank was in the blue building next door.
The blue building was in fact a gallery, the bank was across the lane in the sandstone building with a grilled door. The sandstone building was a restaurant, the bank was across the square in the modern building with a fountain... which was the cafe.
There was no bank in the area at all, they were just being pricks because that's how you treat polite people who come to you asking for help and hoping to cash a travellers cheque to leave more money in the local tills.
Trip two I made the mistake of getting off the ferry shuttle in full view of the taxi driver. I was, he assumed, English and therefore must be ripped off.
The trip to my hotel cost almost triple what I knew it to be, he refused point blank to even stop at the place when we got there ("no no, that driveway is not for stopping" despite the fact there were other taxis parked there and doormen helping people out)and finally, grudgingly dropped me at the exact same entrance after driving around a very large block adding a few more Euros to the fare.
Last time I walked up to the help desk in a train station and asked in my halting French, which platform would get me to the station I had come from.
The guy behind the counter looked, sneered, stood up and turned his back on me.
I asked again, he waved his hand in the internationally-recognised "fuck off" gesture, adding "Eeenglish! Pah!".
I politely asked again, he walked off to pick up a magazine, sat down and started to read.
At this point I tried a new tack, asking after his heritage, why he so closely resembled a woman's genitals and if he would be interested in coming out from behind his plate glass to see how far my fist would fit down his throat.
A young kid eventually walked up, apologised profusely for the guy's behaviour, had a go at him in rapid fire French on my behalf and then walked me to the platform I needed.
I've travelled to dozens of countries all over the world and have never EVER come across a more deliberately shit people.
I've had Kings Cross hookers offer to get me a cab when I'm so trashed I can barely stand, Moscow cab drivers pull into a restaurant to buy me a coffee because it's so cold, total strangers in New York brave Central Park to tell me this is not the place to be taking photos at 2am, Filipino villagers living in dirt-floored huts offer me a ride back into town when I'm lost etc etc etc.
But the tiniest scrap of civil behaviour in Paris? Not a fucking chance.
Every time I tell these stories to someone from England they just shrug and say that's how it is, but seriously, what on earth is up with these people???
The rest of France is nowhere near as bad, it's just this one toxic fucking city.
I'll be fucked if I'll ever go back there again.
( difficultchild, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 3:54, 23 replies)

Manchester
Vsited a few times and had a shite time every time

Except one time when i was on an epic coach trip to scotland and stopped off in Manc for a comfort/fag break-i was there for 20 mins max which was plenty enough.
(shug, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 1:12, Reply)

Chambéry.
Spent a month in this frankly spectacular town.

Chambéry is a fucking lovely place, with great buildings, amazing scenery (nestled near the swiss alps) with brilliant parks, giant pink mansions.... river walks and all sorts of awesome stuff like that.

While I was staying in Chambéry, there was a strike by France's rubbish collectors. They went around ripping open bags of rubbish and tipping out bins to make stinking rotten piles of festering horror line every alleyway and street.

Three hand a half weeks of delight, but half a week of it being a real Rubbish Town.
(Scritty Bakerman., Wed 4 Nov 2009, 0:12, 2 replies)

Grays, Arsehole of Essex
Concrete,litter-carpeted chavland and home of the tuly horrible Lakeside retail park. Smells of chemicals from various toxic factories and is on the other side of the bridge to Dartford....hardly any better. I managed 18 months before moving near Colchester ( a much nicer place)
(gspgirl Sleeping with Prince Valium, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 23:33, 4 replies)

Local papers
Not strictly about a place, but I'm sure representative of many little shitholes with their pointless local rags.

On a long drive a few years ago we stopped off for some food in a village. On the way into the corner shop where we purchased a great deal of diarrhoea inducing yet supposedly edible produce, I noticed the local newspaper; more specifically the headline. It read (and I quote verbatim):

"Man, 86, dies"

How exactly was that a surprise?
(Merrep, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 22:39, 4 replies)

Nobody mentioned Luton yet?
Maybe I didn't read enough posts, but I'm amazed that EVERY post isn't about Luton...
I lived in or around Luton for way too long; let me list its delights...
I got burgled a lot (and the local police were too busy to even come around the last few times)
A local, with a criminal history including murder, beat the living shit out of me for no real reason (and the local police were too busy...)
I had almost every vehicle I owned (and even one owned by my dad and one owned by a mate) stolen or vandalised (and the local police were too busy...)
I worked as a paramedic in the town and while I was resuscitating a patient some worthless wanker stole the guys wallet from the jacket we'd removed (to be fair the local police did at least record that one).
The reason that the police were too busy could be that Luton is populated by the chaviest scum I have ever had the misfortune to meet.
One of the streets (which won the accolade of Britains worst street a few years ago) was called Hookers Way and I think it referred to Lutons most upstanding citizens frankly.
The most decent people I met were mostly immigrants and the locals treated them apallingly. (I still don't understand how pikey fuktards actually think themselves better than law abiding folk that actually don't rob their own community or spend their time off their faces on glue, smack, crack, meth, meths or Charles Wells apalling brews.
The place is so bad even Worthingtons stopped brewing there!
Fanny Craddock used to live there for fucks sake, how bad does it have to be?

Length? The longest 9 years of my life...
(stygof, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 22:36, 7 replies)

Ipswich
Many moons ago, I had the misfortune to spend 7 years in this god-forsaken shithole. In the 9th century, it was one of the most important ports in Europe, then the Vikings went thro it and it's been going down hill ever since. It is populated by the most miserable, unfriendly, sour-faced downright weird bastards I have ever met. More or less every working day, I'd drop in a shop on the way to work to get breakfast to eat on the hoof. Every morning, the following exchange would take place:

(me): 'morning'
(sour-faced old bag behind the counter): '...'
(me): 'sausage sandwich please'
(sfobbtc): 'one pound fifty'
(me): 'thanks, bye'
(sfobbtc): '...'

the newspaper sellers were a sight to behold. one was a hunchback, one only had one arm, and the other was a dwarf with a cleft palate. they used to play darts in a pub which our department favoured for an after-work sharpie. First time I was taken in there, the one-armed bloke was playing the hunchback, with the guy with the cleft palate shouting out the score. It took quite a while for my new work collegues to reassure me that it wasn't actually a piece of Dadaist theatre. There was also another newspaper seller who was always stripped to the waist all year round, except when it snowed; then he'd put on a string vest.

Ipswich - 55 miles east of Cambridge. I escaped to Northampton eventually, and was dazzled by the bright lights after seven years in the Suffolk Shithole. Well, Alan Moore lives here...

First post!
(redexile, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 22:23, 6 replies)

Boston...
Now when I used to say I was from Boston, the "oohs" were quickly replaced by the "oh" when I told them that it "was Boston, Lincolnshire where the pilgrim fathers set off to go to Plymouth, not Boston, Ma"...

I was proud of the fact I was from near there, it was my town dammit, and I liked it, it had a big church, called The Stump. A fucking Stump. Like an amputees left, stump. I think that should have been a sign really...And some bloke who did some printing thingy came from there. And the Pilgrim Fathers. Who, were imprisoned there before, yes, going to Plymouth...Anyway, you can go to the Mayflower centre and get IN FOR FREE, if you're an American, which my parents keep telling my wife; for she, is from the US and A...

However, now living outside of Boston, I have the priviledge for realising what a dump Boston actually is.

It stands near the Wash. And it needs it.

It's stuck in the late 1980's - My wife and I play "first one to spot the shell suit"...

And whenever there was a program about Boston (the woman that stopped traffic for example) I stood aghast at the ignorance and fucking stoo-pidity of these morons...

It's no wonder that the Pilgrim fathers fucked off. I'm surprised they didn't stop off at SkegVegas on the way though.

Oh yeah, that's because that's shite too.

Length? At least it's not another mans come in my mouth.
(beatpig understands subliminalesbianmessagaying., Tue 3 Nov 2009, 21:57, 1 reply)

Gugulethu - South Africa
Pronounced Goo-goo-lair-too, it's home to thousands of blacks. It's what we would call a township which in plain English means a shit hole. It's dangerous, dirty, full of crime, running water is a luxury few houses have and electricity at the time I visited was just being rolled out. It's a relic of the old apartheid days and anyone who lives there fights a daily battle for survival. I'd say it's about as close to hell as you can get.

I worked for about 6 months at a factory not far from Gugs. Gugs being the name we locals affectionately call it. Everyday at the end of my shift I'd pile as many people into my car (an 1100 Austin mini clubman if you must ask) as possible and head off into the filthy roads of this smokey and decrepit town. The air was acrid with the smell of pariffin lamps because of the lack of electricity. Animals were tethered to random posts along the way - ready to be slaughtered later.There used to be a huge truck parked at the entrance to Gugs that housed hundreds of live chickens. Locals would arrive on foot and by battered old cars, buy a live chicken and disappear off into the setting sun with a squawking chicken. The sight of several flapping birds being shoved into the boot of a car became a common site. Blacks prefer their meat fresh so would always buy live chickens.

The streets were covered in litter. It was everywhere. In the fences, along the feebly constructed pavements and even in the potholes. The houses were all constructed from corrugated iron and haphazardly held together by wire. Stolen billboard, train windows and anything that could be used in the makeshift construction of these shacks was on show. The brazen red coca cola logo of said billboard was sometimes the only respite in an other monotonous sea of rusting grey tin shacks.

The other thing that also immediately enters your conscience as you drive into this place is the sheer number of stray dogs. Malnourished they wander aimlessly and scavenge for food. Fights between rival dogs as they eye up a rare morsel of food on the pavement are common. As is the sad site of dead dogs. Hit by passing traffic or simply dead from lack of food, they create a visible reminder of the stark existence animals face here.

Every working day for almost 6 months I drove into Gugs and saw this place. It was shameful that people live like this. It has and always will make me appreciate what I have.
(The Archduke of South London I'm in your Girlfriend eating her organs, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 21:43, 4 replies)