Merthyr Tydfil
I'm an Essex boy, living in Welsh Valleys. I'd been warned about Merthyr (and I come from Thurrock and am all too familiar with places like Basildon and Pitsea)...but Merthyr?

It's well, special.

Most towns have nice areas. Some are nice with rough parts. Some are rough with nice parts. Some are just rough. Merthyr is one of them.

Maybe it's because I've got an accent that makes the denizens think I have stepped off the set of Eastenders. Or Gavin and Stacey. The place has NO redeeming features other than the fact it's a short drive to Brecon - just the other side of the mountains, but a world away.

But Basildon? Oh yes. Last year in a fine `all you can eat Chinese buffet' emporium (surprisingly good food actually) we watched a loud family eat nothing but chicken wings. No seriously. Their plates were piled with the bones.

After they left the head waiter asked us `what kind of people were they?' - they were Irish travellers by the sound of them. Apparently he wasn't happy...because to use the waiter's own words the father figure of the family had refused to pay and `got his toilet parts out'...just another night in Basildon then...
(Audax Victor, Thu 29 Oct 2009, 21:49, 1 reply)

Also from Essex and now living in South Wales
"Maybe it's because I've got an accent that makes the denizens think I have stepped off the set of Eastenders. Or Gavin and Stacey."

Never a truer word spoken.
(Rikaitch is full of crap ideas., Fri 30 Oct 2009, 17:46, closed)