The grumpy thread

[Guest]

I'm not much of a snob and like weird derelict grief holes - stick me in a place with a load of grey 60s concrete and some rusty gasometers and I'll be well chuffed. I'm even quite fond of the Dewsbury area, there's not many people can admit that. And Leeds is pretty nice bar some of its more rotten districts, as cities go it's pretty good. Quit moaning!However, I'd like to say that I found Rhyl the most horrid place I have ever been to, quite an achievement for a seaside town. I didn't mind the fact that most of it was boarded up, but there was something really uneasy about the atmosphere - I got the impression that there's some really harsh violence there, probably involving people being bottled and stabbed. I didn't actually feel threatened myself, but the tension was absolutely unbearable. Didn't stick around.If you'd like to see someone really rant about how much he hates a place, ask my dad about London - he has to go there for meetings sometimes and to say it's a place he doesn't get on with is a massive understatement. It probably isn't that it is an absolute hellhole or anything, I've been and I wasn't a huge fan, but that was probably because I only saw the daft touristy bits and I'm not a huge fan of crowds.However, the way to sum up my dad is that he's not somebody who likes being told how to do things. Bar long-distance rail journeys, he hasn't been on public transport since the early 80s. And he doesn't like paying for things like taxis. Basically, he's used to rolling up in the car, parking it in the "private staff parking" area, doing whatever he has to do and then sodding off home - this is the problem he has with London.I'm pretty sure he used to drive there before they introduced the congestion charge, presumably you can't claim for that on expenses as I'm certain he would do. So whenever he goes there now, he drives 10 minutes away to the train station and gets the train to Kings Cross. Then he walks to his destination, regardless of how far it is - he hates the bus, absolutely refuses to go on the tube and they won't do taxis on expenses. Last time the office he had to get to was about 5 miles away from the train station, took him hours. Fair play to him though, he did it! Silly old git, got to admire his bloody-mindedness though.

[dollywobbler]

I can't stand any towns or cities. Well, ok, Edinburgh can be spectacularly nice and Birmingham has a fine Symphony Hall (well, I would say that as an ex-Brummie) but generally, I'd rather be in the middle of nowhere.

[Ratdat]

This really pisses me off. Well done you little cnuts, the place looks so much better now. I expect they'll now remove this box just like they did with the one in the next village after the little fukkers smashed all the windows in that one too.

 

[Guest]

Scum seem to smash up bus shelters quite frequently and I find it utterly baffling as to why they bother, considering that they have to use them as well.Suppose a phone box is something they wouldn't bother with, which makes me wonder if some kind of logic came into play (doubtful).

[ChinaTom]

Agree with Hirst regarding Rhyl. I detected a very "league of gentlemen" feel to the place. There is, apparently, a very large lunatic asylum in Rhyl that allows its "guests" to freely come and go. This may explain it.

[Guest]

Huddersfield seems to have a similar problem, lots of "interesting" people turn up there. Storthes Hall used to be a mental hospital, maybe they just let them all out when it shut down. Nice enough place apart from that.One other grim place worthy of mention is Castleford - on paper it's not so bad, just some slightly down-at-heel market town with not much of interest. But the place itself is incredibly unfriendly unless you've lived there your entire life. It's amazing how cold and unfriendly the locals are to "outsiders", not just me overthinking it, other people have brought it up too - shopkeepers tend to look at you like you've trailed a load of mud into the shop. Seems like if you're not part of their little club and don't constantly bang on about the "Cas Tigers" rugby team, you might as well be burned alive in a giant wicker man.In fact, that's probably what they do at half time.

[trigger]

Agree with Hirst regarding Rhyl. I detected a very "league of gentlemen" feel to the place. There is, apparently, a very large lunatic asylum in Rhyl that allows its "guests" to freely come and go. This may explain it.

I'm glad it wasn't just me that dislikes Rhyl, I was on holiday to North Wales a couple of months ago and we went to Rhyl for the day, I really didn't like it, It was worse than Clacton for me, Full of rough looking people and boarded up shops and groups of chavs. Unpleasant.

[Mash]

This really pisses me off. Well done you little cnuts, the place looks so much better now. I expect they'll now remove this box just like they did with the one in the next village after the little fukkers smashed all the windows in that one too.

 

Keep an eye on it if they do, you might be able to get it cheap by speaking to the right person.

[pogweasel]

Good luck with that. Been trying to get hold of a reasonably-priced phone box for years, they go for anywhere between £1000 for a damaged one to £3000 for a minter.

[seth]

However, the way to sum up my dad is that he's not somebody who likes being told how to do things.

RETSPCE to your dad for hiking. I walk alot about town too if I'm on my own.I know where he is coming from on this though. The number of signs and announcements there are around the place, particularly surrounding the public trasnport system is getting a nightmare. After a while you become partially numbed to them which is a shame. The constant automated voices telling you what bus stop/tube station your coming to next, then telling you again when you're there, where the train is going etc. I dare say its probably done in the name of equal rights fro the blind or something. But in the old days I would regularly see a blind chap get the tube while I was on my way to school. He could hear/feel where the doors were and then he knew (because he had some intelligence) which station he needed to get off at, presumably by the way the carriage shook, the sounds or simply by counting from where he got on. No problem.

[Cavcraft]

Rhyl is an utter shit tip. Used to go a bit with the missus in our youth, mostly on bank holidays on my motorbike with some others and it was reasonable then.Went about two years back now for the first time in yonks and it's an absolute dog hole of a place. I wouldn't piss on that part of the coast and would far prefer another half hours journey to Blackpool instead.Rhy's claim to fame used to be that it was the busiest place in Europe during peak season but it's probably the reverse now.Weird how you'll see three nicely done up apartment blocks in a row yet the others adjoining have boarded up windows and look like crack dens.If I had any money I'd buy bloody loads of the derelict properties there and sit on them until regeneration came along.

[CortinaDave]

Ah but Rhyl is near that mecca of rusty Shite: the mighty Duke of Lancaster! Awesome!

 

[warren t claim]

That really really spooks me whenever I drive past.

[brammy777]

all this talk of shit places has made me dig up this website, which is pretty in depth about all things Basingstoke, see for yourself and make up your own mind:

http://www.basingstoke.me.uk/

 

Incidently, Basingstoke was in the crap towns book, number 9 IIRC, but wasnt in volume 2. Apparently, the writers hadnt even visited the place.

[r.welfare]

Hey Brammy, that site is excellent!I well remember the day they found the monk's body in the suitcase. I couldn't get into work; my office was right next to the station.

[brammy777]

I think it was just after i moved there, i can vaguely recall it.Also, the section on Mr Clappy, he passes my college every single day. Alot of people take the piss, i dont. Hate it when people do that!

[r.welfare]

Oh aye, Mr Clappy's been around for years. I remember that BMW going through that house as well - how the hell it went through a first floor window is beyond me.I'm still not entirely clear whether this fella's website is serious or taking the piss.

[55bloke]

I find most urban places depressing and in no particular order:- Seaside resorts that had their heyday in the 1950's and can't get used to the idea that it is over and have not moved on. (eg Rhyl, Barry Island, Porthcawl etc.) Town centres "modernised in the 1960's, 70's, 80's that have not realised that the boarded up shops will never re-open because of the retail parks/supermarkets and stupidly high business rents and rates.City centres where "urban regeneration" consists of block paving and new street furniture, numerous apartment blocks, but nowhere to park or any greenery.Out of town shopping centres/retail parks full of people who must buy, buy, buy, from the shops that must sell, sell sell and it's all a load of crap that has been imported from China that fortunately will be out of fashion quicker than it breaks/wears out (but only just and it wont be long) so they can do it all again next week.Any town that has lost its employment and reason for being, where people wander like zombies with nothing to do apart from grow more disaffected, with a generation fed by the media with the thought that they have a right to anything and everything without working for it and that no-one else is worth a damn,Basically I don't like going out at all anywhere where I have to deal with people.

Absolutely spot-on, and expressed with such eloquence!! RESPECT!! I would also add Scarborough, Bridlington, Skeggy and most other East coast seaside towns to the list!

[M'coli]

Basingstoke's multi-story carpark is good IIRC, however it has been 11 years since I was there. Basically, the up ramps are very close together so rather than look about on every level for a space, it allows you to head for the roof straight away where I always used to find a space, park up and be out of there quicker than the ejits trying to find a space close to the bottom where it'll take less time to walk down/get the lift.Unlike effing Woodhouse lane in Leeds, which has the ramps at the very ends of each level thus forcing you to wait for every lazy prick to try to find a space as close to ground level as possible, but by doing this takes fecking ages. I KNOW there are spaces up there, let me at them!!!!

[Rusty Pelican]

I find most urban places depressing and in no particular order:- Seaside resorts that had their heyday in the 1950's and can't get used to the idea that it is over and have not moved on. (eg Rhyl, Barry Island, Porthcawl etc.) Town centres "modernised in the 1960's, 70's, 80's that have not realised that the boarded up shops will never re-open because of the retail parks/supermarkets and stupidly high business rents and rates.City centres where "urban regeneration" consists of block paving and new street furniture, numerous apartment blocks, but nowhere to park or any greenery.Out of town shopping centres/retail parks full of people who must buy, buy, buy, from the shops that must sell, sell sell and it's all a load of crap that has been imported from China that fortunately will be out of fashion quicker than it breaks/wears out (but only just and it wont be long) so they can do it all again next week.Any town that has lost its employment and reason for being, where people wander like zombies with nothing to do apart from grow more disaffected, with a generation fed by the media with the thought that they have a right to anything and everything without working for it and that no-one else is worth a damn,Basically I don't like going out at all anywhere where I have to deal with people.

You should be a writer if your not already , my sentiments exactly but far better put forward than my poxy bonce could do

[sporty-shite]

Whereabouts in Sheffield did you live Sporty? Living 15miles from Sheff, it was the nearest big place for me as a teenager so I know the place quite well.

I lived in Pitsmoor, which I found out about 5 years later was the arsehole suburb of the city. I briefly went to Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Hallamshire University), and studied on the Pond St site, straight facing the old bus station, both of which were filthy from the diesel smoke belched by the thousands of buses which ran up and down Pond St every day.To be fair, I didn't spend much time in the rest of the city centre, and don't remember it being that bad. But the whole student experience was one which I was badly prepared for, both personally and academically, so it cast bad light over the whole experience. And going "home" to Pitsmoor didn't really bring sunshine to my life!

[j-j]

This fokkin country. Perhaps I should say 'Nation' as I'm referring to Scotland, its shite roads and its shite weather!It has rained constantly since last weekend - true, the floods drain away fairly soon but working outside trying to fix a rust hole on Aphrodite the CX when it is a constant drizzle to 'pelters' has me raging on the only days I get chance to fix it. A small job takes 10 times as long due to play being stopped by rain..What a fuggin tropical paradise this is.. all this water and we still waste it all (we could sell all this rainwater to drought stricken places) useless, expensive, high tax shite country

[Mr_Bo11ox]

crumbs, its not as bad as all that surely? Sounds like what you need is a garage.

[j-j]

..had a garage..... with a pit.... and some space.... but not since my break up.... .. garage was at her place..I managed to get the job done but things are damp... 75% happy now.It's still pissing down of course

[brammy777]

Why the hell did i add top gear on facebook?Was it a moment of madness or something?Because now all i get is news updates about cars i dont care about followed by about a million comments of people spelling porsche wrong.

[CIH]

Fooking tight arse taxi drivers piss me off. I work at a tyre place and they're always too tight to buy anything and think they know my job better than me. Had one geordie cock, on the wrong side of the country, with a puncture and he was driving on fucked tyres. Told him so and it was like I had just murdered his children. Utter hatered written across his face.Granted I work for a certain national retailer with the shitties possibile repuation....

[Des]

Taxi drivers are fun, years ago when I worked in a garage in East London, a minicabber rolled up in a big old Mazda, brakes just failed, while he goes off for a cuppa I put the thing in the air, wheels off, easy fault to diagnose, after twelvety million miles the front discs are so incredibly worn down there's a gap which allows a semi worn brake pad to just fall out, got on the phone and ordered up discs and pads, when cabby arrives back I explain/show him the prob and the bastard won't pay for discs, wants me to just replace pads, same as he had done last time/s brakes have failed. Obviously I threw the wheels back on and fucked him out of it. In hindsight I should have reported the cunt.

[retrogeezer]

Granted I work for a certain national retailer with the shitties possibile repuation....

hmmm...good deals on exhausts possible??

[AlsoMike]

What is it with people not being able to drive and not having ANY manners whatsoever? Someone has driven into my Golf AGAIN while it was parked outside my house. It's not wrecked it or anything, but it's buggered the passenger door. No note left, nothing. Why not have the balls to leave a note? Even just to apologise? Seriously?! I'm kind of glad that I didn't see who did it tho, I'd have made a spectacular attempt to tear out their liver right there in the street. I could do without the jail time to be honest, it'd be a bit of an inconvenience.

[sporty-shite]

"I swear on my kids' lives"

 

If there is one phrase in the English language which can boil my piss instantly, it is this.

 

Why can't you just say "it's true, and if you don't believe me, then fuck off"

 

Do you really think I'll believe your inane garble any more if you are prepared to be so glib about something as important as the survival of your offspring.

 

Go and bore someone else, you cock.

 

[/i]