» Rubbish Towns

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!
(Tue 3rd Nov 2009, 22:23, More)

» Rubbish Towns

Corby
Corby: Take 40,000 steelworkers from the Glasgow region, deposit them in a huge council estate with no facilities in rural Northamptonshire to man the steelworks there, then close the steelworks. Result: Hieronymous Bosch World.

I once worked with some guys from Corby on a government-funded job creation scheme, and they kindly offered to take me on a night out there to "see the sights". These comprised a wind-tunnel bus-station, the biggest Netto I've ever seen, and a town where even the pigeons were skag-heads. The pub we met up in had chunks missing from the bar because someone had been barred the night before and had come back with an axe. The till was in an armoured cage as the locals had a habit of ripping the whole thing off the bar and walking out with it.

It was until very recently the biggest town in Europe without a railway station, despite being on the east coast mainline, but they've now built a station and a shopping mall and are trying to sell it as a commuter town for London. If anyone is thinking of fleeing the delights of the capital for Corby (houses are about 20p each, six for a pound), a word of advice - don't. You'll be killed and eaten. And they may not even kill you first.
(Thu 5th Nov 2009, 9:51, More)