BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK

Subject: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mrs Olive Whatnoll
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 12:41 PM

That's roight. You 'eard it 'ere. Crouch End is the 13th crappiest town in the UK. I carn't say I'm surprised! Wif a name like "Crouch End" you know the place 'as got to be crap.

'Ull used to be number one on the list, probally becos of jOhn from 'Ull bein' a resident there, but 'Ull 'as slipped to second place recently. I don't know which town is first now, but I fink it would be nice if it could be Crouch End.

Per'aps if jOhn could be persuaded to move to Crouch End the place would deterirote enough so's it could move to the nyumber 1 spot and be the Crappiest town in the UK. I would be in favour of jOhn movin' to Crouch End, so as to 'elp 'Ull be re'abilitated.

But then 'e might 'ave to change 'is name to jOhn from Crouch End.

I like it. "jOhn from Crouch End". It 'as a good ring to it, don't you fink?

p.s. I am not talkin' to Eddie until the parrot goes.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Micca
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 01:23 PM

Luton is officially number one crappiest Town according to todays paper, and Hull only managed 19th!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Maryrrf
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 01:31 PM

So what other UK towns are on the list???

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 01:39 PM

I like to fish for crappie, and I'm glad to know that they are so abundant in the UK.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 02:17 PM

It was fixed! Salford didn't even get a mention:-( And we haven't even got a city centre! Mind you, perhaps that's why...

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 05:23 PM

fine place Salford - all those matchstick men and cats and dogs - never short of a light in salford.
I used to do a lot of gigs in Salford , is the drill hall vaults still there and Mulvanney's bar.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 05:58 PM

Years ago Buffalo used to be called "The Armpit Of The East". Never knew what town held the honor out west. But it is a very descriptive title.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 06:11 PM

SIR jOhn from Crouch End if you please...Can I just say..if Sir jOhn moved to Crouch End its rating would improve......
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 07:11 PM

Don't know either I'm afraid wld:-( My early drinking days were done in Swinton about 2 miles away and we never dared venture into the dens of iniquity in Salford! I live in Salford now but still on the 'fringe' at Irlams o'th' Heights.

The Drill Hall was on Cross Lane if I remember rightly and I dunno where Mulvanney's bar was. Cross Lane and Regent Road were the city centre that we now lack but I remember them being bustling places full of shops and pubs. As much as they bordered the infamous Hanky Park they were lively, thriving places. A far cry from the pleasant but sterile Quays that the council seem to be pouring all the money into.

On a folky note wasn't the Two Brewers in Salford? Granada used to do a half hour spot called 'Folk from the Two Brewers' and I am sure I went once in the late 60's. Regent Road possibly? Too much ale under the bridge since...;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 07:33 PM

Crouch End is in deepest darkest Bucks !! when the traffic lights change it' a major event. Now if you are talking really crap try.. Dundee, Peth, Dumbarton, Mexborough, Phewelli, Rhyll, Cleethorpes, any town on the Lincolnshire coast, Tring, Cleckheaton, Mallaig and of course Stranraer

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 07:38 PM

"Bucks" is Buckinghamshire, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Bert
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 11:21 PM

Hey! What about Tilbury? Or even worse Gravesend. And then there's Laindon or Plaistow or Wanstead. When it comes to the UK it becomes very difficult at times to define the Crappiest.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 27 Sep 04 - 11:30 PM

WHAT are you all talking about? Have none of you been to London?

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 03:49 AM

Hunstanton - particularly im winter, more so in summer.

Sheringham - the night clubs close at 7:30pm.

Re Tring, is it the only town in the country that sounds like a bicycle bell? Or could that be Ringstead?

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:34 AM

Halifax West Yorkshire, the intellectual cesspit of GB.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Micca
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 05:11 AM

Crouch End is in North London... not Bucks!!!! and is full of Teachers and polytechnic lecturers, at one time it was the Corduroy capital of Britain populated by men in either Corduroy or Tweed jackets with leather elbow patches with wispy beards and vaguely left wing leanings, that glorified The Working Man but voted for lower council taxes rather than pay him a decent wage.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 05:16 AM

I spent a month in Thetford one Tuesday morning.

Or, for absolute miserable experiences try Bugle near St Austell on a drab, wet July afternoon and catch the tangible spirit of a Leonard Cohen song.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 05:40 AM

forgot to mention Greenock, Ingoldmells and Perth

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,banjoman
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 07:42 AM

Basingstoke must be on the list somewhere. It really is the crappiest town imanginable with its new town centre built on the place where my office and the cinema and a great fish & chip shop once stood.
No tradition at all just psuedo irish pubs and teeny boppers pissed out of their minds from 6pm onwards (weekends)
I only go there if absolutely necessary (once a year to tax the car)

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 07:58 AM

BODMIN

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:01 AM

Well - FWIW Wednesbury is the dead centre of civilisation

the very dead centre - I should know I was born and bred there.

10 miles from Birmingham just off the M5 / M6 junction if you really wanted to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Rapparee
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:08 AM

Hey, I think Meyer, Illinois is. I pulled a black crappy out of a slough there that musta weighed three pounts! Good cat, perch and sunfish there, too. I gotta admit that there are some people who hold out for Seehorn, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:34 AM

Well Southampton must take the biscuit as they have one of the worst players in the Premiership playing for them (football). You've guessed it - his name is Peter Crouch. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:37 AM

Yuk Rapaire. How do you catch these things, with a net? Do they lay on the bottom or are they "floaters"? What kind of creature could pass a 3 pound crappy, hardly human methinks unless Illinois breeds 'em big. Don't your environmental people worry about raw sewage damaging the wildlife? Besides it's hardly sport, is it?

That reminds me SLOUGH!

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 08:42 AM

Slough is not so bad, if you can get out of it :-) Shame as it is so near to Windsor.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 09:56 AM

It all depends which way out of Slough you go. You could end up in Langley caught between Slough and Heathrow trying to get on to the M4. Go West young man and Maidenhead beckons but beware the People's Republic of Knowl Hill.

What's so great about Windsor apart from Liz's gaff.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 10:19 AM

That lovely fire a few years ago :-) almost had an accident as I drove along the main road up to slough when the castle was on fire. Watching the bonfire instead of what was going on in front.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 10:50 AM

While you are in the Windsor area how come no-one has mentioned Bracknall. Or is that too awful for words???

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 10:57 AM

I nearly had an accident in Windsor once, but managed to find a pub and used their facilities.

Sorry, wrong thread. Where did I put me coat?

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Rasener
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 11:09 AM

Bracknell is fine. I used to live there (9 years). Lots of good facilities, and easy to get anywhere from there.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 11:31 AM

Used to have to go to Bracknell for work on occasions. Found it a strange place in the town centre. Lots of shops and none of them any bloody use. The fountain was good though. Seems like the sort of place where you could be very depressed and no one would ever notice.
Much like Stevenage.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 12:39 PM

My father actually spent his secondary school years in Slough! He was there between about 1937 and 1942. He then volunteered for service and ended up driving an M5 tank through France and the Low Countries after Normandy...and thence into Germany and Czechoslovakia.

His memories of Slough do not suggest a terribly inspiring place to me. Plus, it has possibly the ugliest name ever given to a town in the English language...except maybe for Crouch End.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:05 PM

Bunyon wrote about the Slough of Despond - or was it Mr Despond who got a bunion in Slough?

the correct answer is...............

Who cares?

- Isn't Slough the nome of Horlics - and look what they did with the Town!

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave Wynn
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:43 PM

Who wrote "come friendly bombs and fall on Slough" wasn't it one of the poet laureates (sp).

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,milk monitor
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 04:48 PM

john betjeman.

I think the word Bletchley is uglier than Crouch End. Never been to either though.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 05:20 PM

Nothing wrong with Crouch End when I frequented it (up to 1996). It's not just anywhere that you could bump into the likes of Dylan and Jagger in the local bars - drawn to Crouch End by the recording studio built there by Dave Stewart (one half of the Eurythmics). There was a lively Sunday lunchtime jazz session at the King's Head which attracted a wonderfully cosmopolitan mix of musicians and audience, and still does as far as I know. The same pub was also a platform for stand-up comics. Crouch End was home to Hornsey art college, which was up there with the Slade in setting the cultural and political agenda of the swinging 60s (and 70s). And I haven't even mentioned the Wisteria tea rooms....

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Bert
Date: 28 Sep 04 - 07:29 PM

Oooooh Ooh-Aah that's fighting talk! London may be dirty but there's so much to do there, that there's no way it's crappy.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 03:54 AM

Slough is the home of Mars, which is where some people would like to send it. Is London crappy? Probably a case of the total not being equal to the sum of the parts. Define London, Inner, Outer, within the M25. Answers please on paper, using ink, preferably via a nib to the usual address. Please enclose SAE for reply.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 05:14 AM

Forgot to pick up on eric the red's swipe at Halifax (UK): "...the intellectual cesspit of GB." He's obviously never seen a production by that magnificent touring theatre company, Northern Broadsides, at its Halifax base in one of those dark Satanic mills (now cleaned up, alas).

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Bert
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:11 AM

You're right Mingulay, there's good parts and there's Plaistow.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Blowzabella at work
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:25 AM

Could someone please either list the new 'winners' or provide a link to the article. Every time I try to search it still comes up with the old one about Hull.

Thanks

BB

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:30 AM

Do I detect a note of "get me out of here" Bert. Or is it merely an
observation on your part. The same could be said of Southall (observing from close proximity) or (sorry Leadfingers) Hayes.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:41 AM

Bert - London is the biggest and the best

The biggest pile of crap and the best place to put it

The map of Britain sports, (agog!)
An outline somewhat like a dog.
Provincial wits, convulse in fits
To see at last where London sits.

© Mr Red 1972

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Gervase
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:38 AM

Crouch End crappy? Maybe now, when it's chock full of media types. They say the best time to burgle a house there is on BAFTA night, as all the residents will be involved in a vast West End love-in.
Never used to be crappy, though, and I should know - I was born and raised there, and have fond memories of the old village, as was.
We were treated to exotica like Vivien Stanshall, who lived up the road, and Long John Baldry, long before Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox burst forth upon the world. June Tabor used to work in the local library (though I can't say I ever registered the fact at the time). For music, as Fionn recalls, the King's Head was THE place for music and stand-up. But, as Micca says, it was also home to the urban leftie long before Islington came to stand for all that. As a child I remember a fellow who looked just like Lenin, dressed in a goose-shit green corduroy suit and using a walking cane, clicking down the street past my house twice a day. My father said he was some leading light of the Communist Party and completely bonkers. Tariq Ali had a flat two roads away when he was still the revolutionary firebrand, and the local middle classes looked upon him with the sort of awe and loathing the Telegraph used to reserve for Tony Benn!
My mother's parents were licensees of the Railway Tavern, which used to attract a lot of trade from the art college. "Bloomin' hairies that don't spend enough of their grants," was my grandfather's view. My father's mother, though she lived in Crouch End, would always head to Highgate for her weekly intake of gin - she having been a major turn at the Finsbury Park music hall and thus a cut above the "hippies and lefties" that were taking over the area. The irony is, she's now buried less than 50 feet from Karl Marx, and must surely be spinning there!

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:57 AM

Try the Erith (Kent) and Slade Green area if you really want a dump. When I was a kid, Erith had quite a nice little town centre with plenty of shops (including a department store called Hedleys) along Pier Road, but they flattened it all and quite frankly except for the walk along the river it's not worth going there these days.

Incidently the locals pronounce it's name EARITH not EHRITH as they always seem to on the BBC.

I have often heard Gravesend called Deadend.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 11:51 AM

The funny thing is that they are proposing to build a mega expensive bridge to connect Essex with the delights of Erith et al. If you like such places try Crayford and Bexleyheath.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 01:27 PM

The names alone are enough to chill the blood...the Germans may count themselves lucky that they never managed to get across the channel in 1940-41.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Blowzabella
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:39 PM

Doesn't anyone have the link I asked for earlier today? Was Morecambe in the list?

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Micca
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 06:57 PM

Blowzabella, here is the link you wantedTry here

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Blowzabella
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 07:26 PM

Pshaw!! (or however you are supposed to spell an expression of such disdain!) It's a fix! Morecambe only came second last year - not even placed this year! What an utter disgrace!

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 08:05 PM

By golly, Bath is # 7! Imagine that. The Whatnolls moved to Bath fairly recently, didn't they? They used to live in Hull. Hull used to be the number 1 crappiest town in England, now it's slipped to number 19 and Bath is number 7. Hmmm...

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Blissfully Ignorant
Date: 29 Sep 04 - 10:20 PM

The most abysmal places in Britain i have had the misfortune to visit- Leiston, Ochiltree, Ayr, Dalmally, and the absolute worst- Kelloholm. The only way you could visit a worse place than Kelloholm would be to die and go to hell. And even then there wouldn't be the same amount of graffitti... Don't even go there, ever. Five minutes and you'll want to slit your wrists and daub 'this place is evil' on the pavement in your own dying blood....

It pains me that all but one of these places is in Scotland. It pains me more that i've lived in two of them , and am currently living in another....

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 06:24 AM

How on earth did Corby only manage 9th, shame on you letting the side down like that. I know the skies are a little brighter now the steelworks are long gone but surely you haven't let the levels of mindless, drunken violence slip to such pathetically low standards. Enduring memories of Corby in the 60's are of shops shuttered even when they're open, no go estates, even more no go pubs and this in the quiet areas. I once knew a guy who drove a taxi in the area and carried a pickaxe handle next to his seat. It was a case of pay before you ride and be prepared to decamp from a moving car on arrival. Also the inhabitants spoke in a strange old-fashioned 1920's/1930's Glasgow dialect that modern Scots had a job to understand.

It fair makes me shudder to think of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST,Mush
Date: 16 Oct 04 - 01:21 PM

Am tellin ya come 2 cleckheaton west yorkshire it is the crapiest town eva. The best thing is wen the fair comes and even then i aint that good.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 03:56 AM

If England had piles they'd put the preparation H on Halifax.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 07:08 AM

Most the votes that I have seen on "quality" of towns seem to be based on the whinges of brain dead kiddies who won't be the first to get out of the rain as that would make them look different from their mates.

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: treewind
Date: 17 Oct 04 - 10:30 AM

Doesn't/Didn't Bob Dylan live in Crouch End?
Depending on you point of view, of course, that may confirm or contradict the original hypothesis.

Anyone got a suggestion for best town? (it's easy to slag a place off...)

Anahata

Subject: RE: BS: Crouch End 13th Crappiest Town in the UK
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 18 Oct 04 - 04:42 AM

Whitby ?

eric