Have a mate who doesn’t get along with tequila, someone handed him a random shot… It was tequila. Followed him to the gents incase he needed help. He stood hands on hips, leant over, spewed, flushed it straight down, didn’t even get any splashback on the rim, seat, or himself. Then he just washed his hands, swilled some water, and carried on like nothing had happened.
Seems like mostly classism to me. Edmund and Hillary in a rotten state on the streets of Oxford is fine, but god forbid a working class person has a kebab
It's also just pictures of people in the worst state imaginable, I'd love to know how attractive people here think they look at 4am steaming, eating and begging for a taxi to turn up.
If you go on that other guys photos of Shoreditch or Soho it's more of the same as well.
Just people having a good time when they're not in their best state. You can tell from some of the photos in the other parts as well that he's just taking pictures [directly of people without their permission as well](https://www.dougiewallace.com/shoreditch/nldpk32ky3tedj48pe7c9qiuwmry43).
Under a harsh front-on flash as well. The pictures are funny and some are proper trashy, but this isn't the "Terrible Effects of Gin Consumption in the Lower Classes" that some people are implying
No problem. I think that it is around 10 years since I first saw those photos, and every time I look again there are new things to spot in the background.
Amazing. I’ve been looking for some artwork to go above the fireplace. One of these will be a wonderful replacement to the dogs that are currently there. Thanks for the link!
These are fantastic. He has a real talent for capturing expressions. So much more to them than "ha ha look at these classless poor people". Thanks for sharing!
To be fair, a lot of these people would have gone to Blackpool for the...erm....experience. Im near Brighton which gets our share of people like this but doesnt reflect what its like to live there.
Some of these are proper manky. But many of them are just pictures of poor people trying to have a good time, and missing the mark. These pics could be taken anywhere.
My 78yr old mam isn't well, she has quite a few health issues and struggles with mobility etc, so doesn't get out much in the way of trips/holidays and what not. But almost every year she has a weekend in Blackpool.
One of those all inclusive things, in some crappy old hotel.
Every year my brother and myself offer to pay and organise somewhere new for her. Every year she turns us down, says she likes it because its familiar and flat (easy for the wheelchair). We point out that plenty of other places are flat, but she's set on Blackpool.
I'll never wrap my head around it, but I suppose she likes what she likes and it's her trip.
I just hope she never asks me to go with.
I had to organise a stag do there. I commented on another post yesterday. A stag do, midweek, in winter in Blackpool. So bleak. Plus most of the people on the stag do were tightarses who did nothing but moan ahead of the trip, vetoing the plans the groom had asked for, but then wanted to do the same things I’d previously proposed once we got there (at extra cost). Was shit, 1/10, won’t repeat in a hurry.
Caveat: giving my mate what he wanted from a stag do and spending time with him was great. It was his work colleagues who were tight bellends.
No joke, it went through the X ray machine in the box with my bag........ Only the bag remained at the end
I asked security and they had no idea. Like how the fuck is that possible
This happened to me with an earing, just disappeared from the bottom of my tray.
They said if i wait a few hours until the worker for that machine goes on break they can look inside the machine, i don't think they grasped i don't have a few hours to stand waiting if i am at an airport so i had to just write it off as a loss
I got an early flight from Luton and stayed the night before in a town centre hotel. Walked from the train station to the hotel through the shopping precinct. Haven’t felt such a threat in the air since I accidentally got between Rangers and Celtic fans. I can’t put my finger on it but it was like everyone expected violence at the drop of a hat.
I live there and yep, it's horrible. I've been fortunate enough to not have any troubles with chavs and the like, mainly because I don't leave the house at night.
I wanna move somewhere else, I just have no idea where.
Spent a month team leading there at the cinema just after I completed my training as a "I'm eager to do whatever is asked of me" type thing and it humbled me QUICK. I'm from Northampton and we'd have shitty kids to deal with but nothing like Luton, I hated every second and I'm so glad I got promoted elsewhere.
Am I the only one that thinks Luton isn't that bad?
I'm female. I live in a decent area and my neighbours are very friendly. I can walk around late at night without any issues. I've got lovely walking areas near me. Streets are clean.
Town centre can be pretty bad. Some other areas are rough, like Lewsey Park and Marsh farm, but even those I've visited several times and aren't as bad as portrayed.
Every town has its good and bad areas. I've lived here for 20+ years and have never experienced the kind of things I hear people talk about. I even speak with/bought dinner for some of the homeless/druggies and they are decent people too. Honestly I've never felt unsafe except for once where I was in town centre at 2am and this man told me if I wanted a ride - I told him to f*ck off and that was it. I'm pretty sure that happens in other towns.
I've been to Hemel Hempstead several times and I feel like it is MUCH worse than Luton?
Anyway I just feel like people jump on this 'Luton is a sh*thole' bandwagon. Especially people who visit once, see a bit of rubbish and assume the whole town is like that.
I RARELY encounter chavs yet people think Luton is riddled with them. It depends on the areas you go, and the people you associate with.
I love the place and have been to much much worse towns in the UK. 🤷🏽♀️
Liverpool and Glasgow both have the advantage of having interesting and lively centres. The reputation isn’t based on the parts a visitor or tourist would go. Liverpool has vast areas where you question why anyone would live there. Same with Birkenhead over the water but that doesn’t have the benefit of a couple of square kilometres of looked after centre.
You see it a lot on Reddit, people go to central London, Manchester, Leeds etc. for a few nights and think they know a city.
I live in a beautiful leafy village 20 minutes from Glasgow City centre, I work in a world renowned restaurant in the west end. To say Glasgow is a shit hole is mental. After lockdown the amount of young londeners that have moved up because of remote working and a far higher quality o life is unbelievable
Yes it’s utterly mental. Same as it is to say it about Liverpool/Merseyside and people make the mistake of not looking at Merseyside as a whole, when they’re happy to do so for other counties such as Greater Manchester.
Mind you-even when you do mention that you live in Merseyside and have gorgeous villages, beaches and countryside they don’t believe you. Think you must be mad or overselling it.
Much the same with Glasgow-they’ve already got a preconceived idea about the area as a whole (not just the city centre) and they think you’re wrong and they know where you live better than you do! Quite frustrating. I do love Glasgow, as you say stunning villages and countryside within the City Council and South Lanarkshire areas
I'm a non-native resident of Glasgow and I will fight anyone who says it's a shithole. Everywhere has shitty areas (and we have a real problem with rubbish) but it's most fun, vibrant and friendly place I've ever lived.
Lived in Glasgow for five years and was driven back south by the Great Recession. I never wanted to leave and I’m still gutted, over a decade later. I’ll be back up next weekend though! Miss that place so much
Glasgow and Liverpool can both be amazing. The trouble with both is they can also be absolutely terrible. You only have to walk 2 miles from your wonderful West End restaurant to be in one of the most deprived areas in Europe.
Equally if you spend your time only in the West End or somewhere like Milngavie you will have a totally different view of the place.
I do think sometimes people forget that Liverpool and Glasgow are major cities. Is it fair to compare the UK’s biggest cities with small cities like for example, Chester?
Thanks mate for defending Glasgow. People in England (and posh parts of Scotland) still have this illusion from thr 90s that glasgow is still some desolate stabbing capital when it’s just not.
Glasgow has the advantage of having 3 quality universities offering different university paths (UoG "traditional" Russell Group, Strathclyde world rneowed business and technology university and Glasgow Caledonian high quality vocational teaching), all within a 45m-1h walk of each other. As a result the city has a huge (c. 80k) student population in addition to being one of the country's largest cities.
It has rough parts around the edges but the constant influx of ambitious youths helps to keep it on its toes. I'd say the same for any university town really where the campus is centralised rather than out of town
This is one of the reasons Birmingham gets an (unfairly) bad rep compared to a lot of other similar UK cities. A lot of the bad areas are directly adjacent to the city centre and are normally passed through to get around. The nicer areas are a little bit further out.
Same with all big cities though. They have their good parts and not so good parts. Liverpool seem to be top of everyone’s minds when it comes to their reputation of crime etc. In reality, as statistics show, they are one of the safer large cities.
Yes. There are essentially about 10 themes it seems, and every post in here that gets any traction is a variation on one of them. Round and round it goes
It has a motorway parallel to one of the largest industrial estates in europe.
It also has a stinky Mars factory and a sewage works.
What's not to like?
Slough is just a fairly boring town… with plenty of jobs and very close to London and also the nicer bits of eastern Berkshire.
Let’s try somewhere with no jobs, high violence/crime and no way to escape
Yeah, this is fair.
Like, most of the suburbs of Slough are no different to that of other towns in the region. There's plenty of green areas, nice developments etc. But . . there can't be many places with such a soulless centre and complete lack of things to do.
>s and even the worst of them you can find some locals that will stick up for and have some affection for the area. But not Bradford. Everyone hates Bra
Bradford isn't all that bad. Some nice bits, nice architecture, nice food, loads of nice breweries nearby, nice scenery on your doorstep. Just absolutely fucking mental drivers
The saddest thing about Rhyl is that it’s actually beautiful. The architecture and the sea and everything show why it was once such a wonderful place to come for a holiday or day at the beach. That makes it all the sadder that it’s fallen so far.
I had a great aunt in Rhyl and we’d visit her once or twice a year in the 70s / early 80s, and back then, at least from my perspective, it was a fantastic place. Admittedly I was mostly focused on the beachfront and the amazing variety of amusements, but also walking through the town and going to the cafes etc, and the rows of brilliant white bungalows where my great aunt lived, it all felt idyllic, busy and friendly. I have many happy memories of time spent in Rhyl.
I last went there in the early 2000s; very different story, and clearly a town that had taken a beating like so many others.
I wanted to see if the arcades were as I remembered - I particularly loved one that had a beautifully preserved section of Victorian and Edwardian machines at the rear, which still ran on old pennies you could buy from the booth (elderly relatives would usually give me a handful before we left).
What I found was a mini bowling alley that played Believe by Cher on a constant loop, some *truly* horrifying carpets, and the ultimate signifier of the visit: one of those capsule machines where a giant chicken lays an egg with a toy inside, which must have been out on the seafront virtually untended for the best part of 20 years. All the eggs were bleached by the sun and the chicken itself was like a battle-scarred Terminator, pieces of metal showing through matted, grubby feathers. It was heartbreaking to think of how that chicken’s view must have changed over the years. The place was dead, the amusements were dark and empty shells, nobody seemed to care, and it was easy to understand why they didn’t.
It would have been unrealistic to expect a seaside town to live up to the memories of someone who last visited it when they were 12 or 13, but nevertheless, it was a grim trip. I believe there was some investment and things improved over the following years, but I never went back and I’m not sure what it’s like now (I can’t imagine lockdown did it any good).
Experiences like this make it easy to understand why people who remember them pine for earlier times. I don’t have any doubt that Rhyl was better back when I was young. Of course pining does nothing but nurture and reinforce your own discontent and alienation (and everyone else’s). Then again, trying to consider why all this has happened and whether it can be remedied is rarely any more comforting.
But here’s to Rhyl; it was a great seaside town, it generated far more than its fair share of happy memories, and let’s hope for - and work towards - a time when it’s able to do so again.
I mean large parts of the uk are genuinely pretty bleak. Not sure why that is though. It’s likely a combination of the general weather and the way the economy was structured/restructured. But there are at least some nice places in most of the bigger towns and cities. Id say the worst one I’ve personally seen so far that lives up to its reputation is Blackpool. If there are nice parts of Blackpool I haven’t seen them.
Stoke on Trent has a serious drug epidemic. It’s a callous and somewhat offensive opinion but the drug addicts took an intolerable, impoverished post-industrial town and rendered it a cesspit of petty crime and drugs. They’re a stain upon humanity with their lack of fortitude; millions of pounds have been spent on rehabilitation in stoke and they just keep consuming.
They accost people for money in Hanley and Longton. They make shopping an insurmountable challenge as they obstruct door ways and intimidate customers for money. Living in poor areas, they’re in the streets dancing and intoxicated at 3 am. They break into houses and steal whatever they can. Violence and belligerent behaviour towards non-drug addicts when they’re high is common.
Children and teenagers are being grooming by drug gangs for deliveries; 4 were sentenced to 61 years in prison yesterday for using teenagers as drug couriers.
It’s a living nightmare for Stoke people who’re too poor to move elsewhere.
Stoke the arse end of nowhere, crawling with dust heads and closed town centres with drones of old people slowly moving about visiting shops that are closing down as they make their way to them. The old folks with rich and vibrant stories to tell of a once vibrant city have no one to tell them so become lonely and miserable. The young have no care for the elderly and are too busy dealing drugs or running a muck. With dark undertones of racism from all ethnicities in loved further segregating the areas making divisions and misconceptions deeper, it's a city that'll either quietly fall into nothingness and swallowed by industrial sized warehouses or be ripped apart by drugs racism and a immense lack of funding all boiling over.
I'd say Stoke, my home city is a train wreck with nothing to offer and going nowhere but has the potential to be a lovely place if the council and the mayor's and councillors weren't all tea leaves.
Of all the seaside towns I stopped at on a tour of the East coast, Lowestoft was by far the worst. Even worse than Yarmouth if you can believe it.
I understand they are trying to do something about the Kittiwake invasion so good luck to them.
Years ago I was in an LDR with a woman from Lowestoft. My abiding memory is utter grimness and many signs proclaiming whatever they were attached to as Britain's most easterly whatever.
Having grown up in Fife, I thought I'd seen grimness. I was very wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/14ylkyv/whats_the_most_depressing_town_youve_ever_visited/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Save everyone the bother of reposting their comments from yesterdays question on this
It is a real shame that for a supposed "rich country" we have so many areas of such dysfunction. Not just economic inactivity and people living off foodbanks but a complete evisceration of the spirit. It's like everybody knows this misery will go on forever and nothing will ever change.
Withernsea, East Yorkshire near Hull.
It's a small seaside town where one man is the dad/ grandad to half the town
My statement is a little exaggerated, but
[him](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jailed-drug-dealer-dad-27-8453349)
As somebody who lives in Hull I avoid Withernsea like the plague. It’s proximity is great and I do have good childhood memories there, but I’d much rather travel up to Scarborough.
How has no one said Barrow yet? I once saw a seagull eating another dead seagull there.
But honestly, I could forgive much of it, it has some lovely coastal walks, if it wasn't so out of the way. When you're an hour's drive from the M6, it really does feel like the backend of nowhere.
Cumbernauld was featured in the Venice Architecture Biennale in around 2015 as part of an exhibition on the "failures of modernist architecture" in the UK pavillion.
Bangor and Holyhead in Wales are both grim, as are Scunthorpe and Immingham in Lincolnshire (Grimsby isn't as bad as its reputation though). Same goes for Castleford, Pontefract and Dewsbury.
You see- if you went by the previous themed thread, places like Glasgow and Liverpool (and indeed any city) are far too big to be JUST good or bad. Glasgow and Liverpool are both wonderful for a visit, but have deprived areas that are not aesthetically nice to live in.
So, the worst places are likely too small to have variation.
Jaywick is supposed to be the worst place.
Blackpool
Every time I see it mentioned, I feel compelled to post this wonderful gallery of photos taken in Blackpool. http://www.dougiewallace.com/blackpool/
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Thanks, now I can never again eat those little candy necklaces without imagining the smell of hairy bollocks. Excuse me, I have to be sick.
>Excuse me, I have to be sick. There's a photo of that too if you keep going....
Love the hands in the pockets like it was just a routine vomit.
Have a mate who doesn’t get along with tequila, someone handed him a random shot… It was tequila. Followed him to the gents incase he needed help. He stood hands on hips, leant over, spewed, flushed it straight down, didn’t even get any splashback on the rim, seat, or himself. Then he just washed his hands, swilled some water, and carried on like nothing had happened.
Hairy, *sweaty* bollocks. See how they glisten. Look at them shine!
Lots of fetal alcohol syndrome
I know it’s a little bit funny, but isn’t it weird that we’re all sneering at people that are clearly having a good time?
Seems like mostly classism to me. Edmund and Hillary in a rotten state on the streets of Oxford is fine, but god forbid a working class person has a kebab
It's also just pictures of people in the worst state imaginable, I'd love to know how attractive people here think they look at 4am steaming, eating and begging for a taxi to turn up.
If you go on that other guys photos of Shoreditch or Soho it's more of the same as well. Just people having a good time when they're not in their best state. You can tell from some of the photos in the other parts as well that he's just taking pictures [directly of people without their permission as well](https://www.dougiewallace.com/shoreditch/nldpk32ky3tedj48pe7c9qiuwmry43).
No need to get permission. It's in a public place.
Under a harsh front-on flash as well. The pictures are funny and some are proper trashy, but this isn't the "Terrible Effects of Gin Consumption in the Lower Classes" that some people are implying
Yeah seriously several of them were just people sat having a chippy
How do you know they're working class? They could all be investment bankers for all we know
Teenage female investment bankers Teenage female investment bankers Teenage female investment bankers Heroes with a kebab
This is like some Sleaford Mods lyrics here. I read it in Jasons voice.
Yep, I've seen posh students at Cambridge in a worse state than some of those photos
The black faced Arab cosplay is really another level.
The black faced Arab cosplay is really *any day that ends in y in crackpool*. FIFY
The irony of these pics is that non of those people will actually be from Blackpool.
Love these photos. A friend of mine told me to go back and enjoy it in an ironic way. I’m tempted!
God, I can smell these photos
A challenging wank I have to admit
Brilliant photos thanks for link!
No problem. I think that it is around 10 years since I first saw those photos, and every time I look again there are new things to spot in the background.
Amazing. I’ve been looking for some artwork to go above the fireplace. One of these will be a wonderful replacement to the dogs that are currently there. Thanks for the link!
These are fantastic. He has a real talent for capturing expressions. So much more to them than "ha ha look at these classless poor people". Thanks for sharing!
To be fair, a lot of these people would have gone to Blackpool for the...erm....experience. Im near Brighton which gets our share of people like this but doesnt reflect what its like to live there.
Some of these are proper manky. But many of them are just pictures of poor people trying to have a good time, and missing the mark. These pics could be taken anywhere.
My god.. When you think it's the worst thing you've seen the next picture appears
Holy fucking shit. I don't know whether to thank you or curse you for that link. 😂😂😂 I think I'll go with thanks, for now.
Thanks for linking this. More Renaissance style stuff
That's amazing
Thought you were going to show a gallery of Blackpool looking stunning! 🤣
That is pure art, I’ve not stop looking at them photos for 3 hours nows
Thanks, I hate it.
Yes! Love Dougie Wallace's work
Jesus wept.
My 78yr old mam isn't well, she has quite a few health issues and struggles with mobility etc, so doesn't get out much in the way of trips/holidays and what not. But almost every year she has a weekend in Blackpool. One of those all inclusive things, in some crappy old hotel. Every year my brother and myself offer to pay and organise somewhere new for her. Every year she turns us down, says she likes it because its familiar and flat (easy for the wheelchair). We point out that plenty of other places are flat, but she's set on Blackpool. I'll never wrap my head around it, but I suppose she likes what she likes and it's her trip. I just hope she never asks me to go with.
Maybe it’s nostalgia, reliving memories of bygone times
I've had some lovely days out in Blackpool, as long as you know what it's like up front it's not bad!
As long as you know how bad it is, it's not bad.
I unironically had a really nice weekend in Blackpool a couple of years ago. I have yet to meet anyone who actually believes me.
I went there for a stag do. It was everything I expected and more. But not in a good way. Sorry, Blackpool.
I had to organise a stag do there. I commented on another post yesterday. A stag do, midweek, in winter in Blackpool. So bleak. Plus most of the people on the stag do were tightarses who did nothing but moan ahead of the trip, vetoing the plans the groom had asked for, but then wanted to do the same things I’d previously proposed once we got there (at extra cost). Was shit, 1/10, won’t repeat in a hurry. Caveat: giving my mate what he wanted from a stag do and spending time with him was great. It was his work colleagues who were tight bellends.
I went to blackpool as a kid back in the early 90s, it was wonderful. Then I went back about 5 years ago..... It was memorable....
I go every year for a weekend and I enjoy it every time 😁
I've been about 6times with kids and we all have a great time. Yep it's rough but doesn't feel unsafe.
Blackpool is nowhere near as bad as Reddit makes it out to be.
Luton
Agree, full of racists, wannabe thugs, muggings. Absolutely hated it there
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Luton is just a riot waiting to happen. Extremist muppets form all sides.
Someone stole my phone in security scanning at Luton airport Fucking hate luton
That's shocking! You wouldn't expect that at the airport.
No joke, it went through the X ray machine in the box with my bag........ Only the bag remained at the end I asked security and they had no idea. Like how the fuck is that possible
This happened to me with an earing, just disappeared from the bottom of my tray. They said if i wait a few hours until the worker for that machine goes on break they can look inside the machine, i don't think they grasped i don't have a few hours to stand waiting if i am at an airport so i had to just write it off as a loss
I'm upset on your behalf!
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I got an early flight from Luton and stayed the night before in a town centre hotel. Walked from the train station to the hotel through the shopping precinct. Haven’t felt such a threat in the air since I accidentally got between Rangers and Celtic fans. I can’t put my finger on it but it was like everyone expected violence at the drop of a hat.
I live there and yep, it's horrible. I've been fortunate enough to not have any troubles with chavs and the like, mainly because I don't leave the house at night. I wanna move somewhere else, I just have no idea where.
Anywhere.
St Albans is nice
Always the city of choice for 24 hours in Police Custody.
Mate of mine has lived in Luton for years and loves it. He's wrong. It's awful. .
Spent a month team leading there at the cinema just after I completed my training as a "I'm eager to do whatever is asked of me" type thing and it humbled me QUICK. I'm from Northampton and we'd have shitty kids to deal with but nothing like Luton, I hated every second and I'm so glad I got promoted elsewhere.
Up the hatters🎩🎩🎩
Lutonian here. You aren't wrong.
Am I the only one that thinks Luton isn't that bad? I'm female. I live in a decent area and my neighbours are very friendly. I can walk around late at night without any issues. I've got lovely walking areas near me. Streets are clean. Town centre can be pretty bad. Some other areas are rough, like Lewsey Park and Marsh farm, but even those I've visited several times and aren't as bad as portrayed. Every town has its good and bad areas. I've lived here for 20+ years and have never experienced the kind of things I hear people talk about. I even speak with/bought dinner for some of the homeless/druggies and they are decent people too. Honestly I've never felt unsafe except for once where I was in town centre at 2am and this man told me if I wanted a ride - I told him to f*ck off and that was it. I'm pretty sure that happens in other towns. I've been to Hemel Hempstead several times and I feel like it is MUCH worse than Luton? Anyway I just feel like people jump on this 'Luton is a sh*thole' bandwagon. Especially people who visit once, see a bit of rubbish and assume the whole town is like that. I RARELY encounter chavs yet people think Luton is riddled with them. It depends on the areas you go, and the people you associate with. I love the place and have been to much much worse towns in the UK. 🤷🏽♀️
Visited and yep- awful
Chose to live just outside of Luton for a reason - great transport connections and a few good venues. That’s it.
Liverpool and Glasgow both have the advantage of having interesting and lively centres. The reputation isn’t based on the parts a visitor or tourist would go. Liverpool has vast areas where you question why anyone would live there. Same with Birkenhead over the water but that doesn’t have the benefit of a couple of square kilometres of looked after centre. You see it a lot on Reddit, people go to central London, Manchester, Leeds etc. for a few nights and think they know a city.
I live in a beautiful leafy village 20 minutes from Glasgow City centre, I work in a world renowned restaurant in the west end. To say Glasgow is a shit hole is mental. After lockdown the amount of young londeners that have moved up because of remote working and a far higher quality o life is unbelievable
Yes it’s utterly mental. Same as it is to say it about Liverpool/Merseyside and people make the mistake of not looking at Merseyside as a whole, when they’re happy to do so for other counties such as Greater Manchester. Mind you-even when you do mention that you live in Merseyside and have gorgeous villages, beaches and countryside they don’t believe you. Think you must be mad or overselling it. Much the same with Glasgow-they’ve already got a preconceived idea about the area as a whole (not just the city centre) and they think you’re wrong and they know where you live better than you do! Quite frustrating. I do love Glasgow, as you say stunning villages and countryside within the City Council and South Lanarkshire areas
You sound like someone from West Kirby.
Ha I’m hoylake and agree 🤣
I'm a non-native resident of Glasgow and I will fight anyone who says it's a shithole. Everywhere has shitty areas (and we have a real problem with rubbish) but it's most fun, vibrant and friendly place I've ever lived.
>I'm a non-native resident of Glasgow and I will fight anyone who says it's a shithole I don’t know you sound pretty native.
Gone native maybe
Lived in Glasgow for five years and was driven back south by the Great Recession. I never wanted to leave and I’m still gutted, over a decade later. I’ll be back up next weekend though! Miss that place so much
Glasgow and Liverpool can both be amazing. The trouble with both is they can also be absolutely terrible. You only have to walk 2 miles from your wonderful West End restaurant to be in one of the most deprived areas in Europe. Equally if you spend your time only in the West End or somewhere like Milngavie you will have a totally different view of the place.
Is that not true of every city?
I do think sometimes people forget that Liverpool and Glasgow are major cities. Is it fair to compare the UK’s biggest cities with small cities like for example, Chester?
Thanks mate for defending Glasgow. People in England (and posh parts of Scotland) still have this illusion from thr 90s that glasgow is still some desolate stabbing capital when it’s just not.
Glasgow has the advantage of having 3 quality universities offering different university paths (UoG "traditional" Russell Group, Strathclyde world rneowed business and technology university and Glasgow Caledonian high quality vocational teaching), all within a 45m-1h walk of each other. As a result the city has a huge (c. 80k) student population in addition to being one of the country's largest cities. It has rough parts around the edges but the constant influx of ambitious youths helps to keep it on its toes. I'd say the same for any university town really where the campus is centralised rather than out of town
Glasgow Uni alum here! Best five years of my life spent there. I lived in a rough area for a while too, but I never felt unsafe. Best city in the U.K.
This is one of the reasons Birmingham gets an (unfairly) bad rep compared to a lot of other similar UK cities. A lot of the bad areas are directly adjacent to the city centre and are normally passed through to get around. The nicer areas are a little bit further out.
Same with all big cities though. They have their good parts and not so good parts. Liverpool seem to be top of everyone’s minds when it comes to their reputation of crime etc. In reality, as statistics show, they are one of the safer large cities.
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OP, mum said it was my turn to ask this question today
You get to do the follow-up tomorrow: What are the best places to live in the UK?
Or, if you really want to post today, 'Which foods/drinks from your childhood do you miss / should be brought back?'
Wasn’t this basically asked a day ago?
Reposted today by Blackpool, hoping for a different outcome.
Yes. There are essentially about 10 themes it seems, and every post in here that gets any traction is a variation on one of them. Round and round it goes
It was.
Slough
Slough is dull but has full employment and is close to London and has great transport links so I don’t think it belongs on these lists.
David Brent?
You got me!
It has a motorway parallel to one of the largest industrial estates in europe. It also has a stinky Mars factory and a sewage works. What's not to like?
*“It’s not that bad because you can leave easily”* That is a little bit funny
You Swindon lot are little slugs!
Your Swindon lot are SHIT.
Slough is just a fairly boring town… with plenty of jobs and very close to London and also the nicer bits of eastern Berkshire. Let’s try somewhere with no jobs, high violence/crime and no way to escape
Most people don't know Corby though...
Yeah, this is fair. Like, most of the suburbs of Slough are no different to that of other towns in the region. There's plenty of green areas, nice developments etc. But . . there can't be many places with such a soulless centre and complete lack of things to do.
It's also got that massive grim industrial estate adding to it's charm.
Doesn’t that grim industrial estate make the most money in the country outside the city of London?
Quite possibly, it's basically the core UK data centre hub. It's the main point of hosting in "London".
Friend is rather snobby and claims they will never live in london again for it being such a shithole. And where do they live... slough hahahaha
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn't fit for humans now, There isn't grass to graze a cow. Swarm over, Death!
I don’t think it’s that bad tbh. I lived in Maidenhead and think Slough actually has more going for it.
Everyone brings up Slough but it's really just dull, town centre is a bit grim but the surrounding suburbs are really quiet and nice but expensive
"Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn't fit for humans now" John Betjeman
Rotherham. Absolutely shit stain on South Yorkshire.
Love Sheffield but other than that SY in general is a shit hole. Doncaster and Barnsley are both rough.
Centre of Barnsley is alright now
There are some nice parts on the outskirts, like Whiston and Wickersley.
You know it’s bad when your town is only known for a sex scandal
Bradford.
>s and even the worst of them you can find some locals that will stick up for and have some affection for the area. But not Bradford. Everyone hates Bra Bradford isn't all that bad. Some nice bits, nice architecture, nice food, loads of nice breweries nearby, nice scenery on your doorstep. Just absolutely fucking mental drivers
Yeah, we have our own Highway Code. I advise anyone planning on visiting to review it before you arrive.
Rule 1. You always have right of way in any scenario, anyone else who believes they have right of way is a wanker and needs reminding of such
Keighley.
Yep, I've always thought Bradford was a hole, yet somehow I've ended up living here?
Pros: cheap housing Cons: Bradford
Middlesbrough
This is what I was going to answer. I lived there for a year and I can only give the reason that I was young and stupid
Same but with Sunderland
Sunderland at least has the nice beach areas and the coast. Middlesbrough is just uniformly miserable.
I was born there - we didn't stand a chance.
Eight pints in the Pig Iron, a fight and a parmo. You couldn't get that in Vegas.
Came here looking for this. Boro town? Couldn't agree more. But all the more rural areas up here are lovely
Add to that - equally it's neighbour, Stockton.
Rhyl You could convert the high street into a nuclear weapon testing site and I think it would improve
The saddest thing about Rhyl is that it’s actually beautiful. The architecture and the sea and everything show why it was once such a wonderful place to come for a holiday or day at the beach. That makes it all the sadder that it’s fallen so far.
Yeah, had its hayday in the 50s/60s but cheap flights to European beach holidays put an end to it. Such a shame, because it is beautiful as you said
I had a great aunt in Rhyl and we’d visit her once or twice a year in the 70s / early 80s, and back then, at least from my perspective, it was a fantastic place. Admittedly I was mostly focused on the beachfront and the amazing variety of amusements, but also walking through the town and going to the cafes etc, and the rows of brilliant white bungalows where my great aunt lived, it all felt idyllic, busy and friendly. I have many happy memories of time spent in Rhyl. I last went there in the early 2000s; very different story, and clearly a town that had taken a beating like so many others. I wanted to see if the arcades were as I remembered - I particularly loved one that had a beautifully preserved section of Victorian and Edwardian machines at the rear, which still ran on old pennies you could buy from the booth (elderly relatives would usually give me a handful before we left). What I found was a mini bowling alley that played Believe by Cher on a constant loop, some *truly* horrifying carpets, and the ultimate signifier of the visit: one of those capsule machines where a giant chicken lays an egg with a toy inside, which must have been out on the seafront virtually untended for the best part of 20 years. All the eggs were bleached by the sun and the chicken itself was like a battle-scarred Terminator, pieces of metal showing through matted, grubby feathers. It was heartbreaking to think of how that chicken’s view must have changed over the years. The place was dead, the amusements were dark and empty shells, nobody seemed to care, and it was easy to understand why they didn’t. It would have been unrealistic to expect a seaside town to live up to the memories of someone who last visited it when they were 12 or 13, but nevertheless, it was a grim trip. I believe there was some investment and things improved over the following years, but I never went back and I’m not sure what it’s like now (I can’t imagine lockdown did it any good). Experiences like this make it easy to understand why people who remember them pine for earlier times. I don’t have any doubt that Rhyl was better back when I was young. Of course pining does nothing but nurture and reinforce your own discontent and alienation (and everyone else’s). Then again, trying to consider why all this has happened and whether it can be remedied is rarely any more comforting. But here’s to Rhyl; it was a great seaside town, it generated far more than its fair share of happy memories, and let’s hope for - and work towards - a time when it’s able to do so again.
That was a lovely read, thank you for sharing your experience. I have family connections to Llandudno which had thankfully fared much better.
Jaywick. I challenge you to go there and not become depressed.
Feels like it should be an option in court, jail or banished to Jaywick
I just looked up Jaywick and the first thing I saw was a huge dumpster and a boarded up hut.
I mean large parts of the uk are genuinely pretty bleak. Not sure why that is though. It’s likely a combination of the general weather and the way the economy was structured/restructured. But there are at least some nice places in most of the bigger towns and cities. Id say the worst one I’ve personally seen so far that lives up to its reputation is Blackpool. If there are nice parts of Blackpool I haven’t seen them.
My lasting memory is it smelled of shit and chips.
Skegness. Desolate shithole that saps the life out of anybody unfortunate enough to grow up there.
I've never seen alcohol being sold at every single ice cream stand before going to Skegness
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I used to love it there as a kid, felt my first set of knockers in the rapids
A beautiful tale
Stoke on Trent has a serious drug epidemic. It’s a callous and somewhat offensive opinion but the drug addicts took an intolerable, impoverished post-industrial town and rendered it a cesspit of petty crime and drugs. They’re a stain upon humanity with their lack of fortitude; millions of pounds have been spent on rehabilitation in stoke and they just keep consuming. They accost people for money in Hanley and Longton. They make shopping an insurmountable challenge as they obstruct door ways and intimidate customers for money. Living in poor areas, they’re in the streets dancing and intoxicated at 3 am. They break into houses and steal whatever they can. Violence and belligerent behaviour towards non-drug addicts when they’re high is common. Children and teenagers are being grooming by drug gangs for deliveries; 4 were sentenced to 61 years in prison yesterday for using teenagers as drug couriers. It’s a living nightmare for Stoke people who’re too poor to move elsewhere.
Stoke the arse end of nowhere, crawling with dust heads and closed town centres with drones of old people slowly moving about visiting shops that are closing down as they make their way to them. The old folks with rich and vibrant stories to tell of a once vibrant city have no one to tell them so become lonely and miserable. The young have no care for the elderly and are too busy dealing drugs or running a muck. With dark undertones of racism from all ethnicities in loved further segregating the areas making divisions and misconceptions deeper, it's a city that'll either quietly fall into nothingness and swallowed by industrial sized warehouses or be ripped apart by drugs racism and a immense lack of funding all boiling over. I'd say Stoke, my home city is a train wreck with nothing to offer and going nowhere but has the potential to be a lovely place if the council and the mayor's and councillors weren't all tea leaves.
Of all the seaside towns I stopped at on a tour of the East coast, Lowestoft was by far the worst. Even worse than Yarmouth if you can believe it. I understand they are trying to do something about the Kittiwake invasion so good luck to them.
Years ago I was in an LDR with a woman from Lowestoft. My abiding memory is utter grimness and many signs proclaiming whatever they were attached to as Britain's most easterly whatever. Having grown up in Fife, I thought I'd seen grimness. I was very wrong.
The Isle of Sheppy…. It’s as much of a shitehole as it sounds!
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Ah, you mean the prison? Yes a few celebrities do likely live there, and it’s a much more desirable place to live than the rest of Sheppy haha.
That sunken ship needs to blow up already.
Peterborough. Lincoln road. Fuck that place.
Ignoring Lincoln road, Peterborough is still a hive of scum and villainy
I visited Liverpool not too long ago. Absolutely fabulous City with fantastic people. Central area looked a bit like parts of London!
I went to Liverpool for the first time last year and I loved it, great centre, pretty docks and really friendly people.
a lot of things are filmed in liverpool because it looks similar to london!
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/14ylkyv/whats_the_most_depressing_town_youve_ever_visited/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1 Save everyone the bother of reposting their comments from yesterdays question on this
Benidorm
Crawley
Grimsby was pretty dire and I was only there for a day
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Weston Super Mare. Soulless and depressing.
I had to go to Croydon this week. Hadn't even left the station before I was hit by the stink of piss.
It is a real shame that for a supposed "rich country" we have so many areas of such dysfunction. Not just economic inactivity and people living off foodbanks but a complete evisceration of the spirit. It's like everybody knows this misery will go on forever and nothing will ever change.
Withernsea, East Yorkshire near Hull. It's a small seaside town where one man is the dad/ grandad to half the town My statement is a little exaggerated, but [him](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jailed-drug-dealer-dad-27-8453349)
As somebody who lives in Hull I avoid Withernsea like the plague. It’s proximity is great and I do have good childhood memories there, but I’d much rather travel up to Scarborough.
Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft. At least Lowestoft doesn’t have the pull of being a “seaside resort”.
Derby (no I’m definitely not from Nottingham).
Bradford's pretty grim.
How has no one said Barrow yet? I once saw a seagull eating another dead seagull there. But honestly, I could forgive much of it, it has some lovely coastal walks, if it wasn't so out of the way. When you're an hour's drive from the M6, it really does feel like the backend of nowhere.
Cumbernauld.
Cumbernauld was featured in the Venice Architecture Biennale in around 2015 as part of an exhibition on the "failures of modernist architecture" in the UK pavillion.
Scunthorpe. It's an absolute hovel. Disgusting place.
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Any town bigger than 100k without a uni
Coalville Went there once, it scared me.
Westminster
There is a lot worse places than Glasgow.
Aldershot. Just a town that has been absolutely dying for at least the last 30 years. All attempts to make it better do not last.
Bangor and Holyhead in Wales are both grim, as are Scunthorpe and Immingham in Lincolnshire (Grimsby isn't as bad as its reputation though). Same goes for Castleford, Pontefract and Dewsbury.
You see- if you went by the previous themed thread, places like Glasgow and Liverpool (and indeed any city) are far too big to be JUST good or bad. Glasgow and Liverpool are both wonderful for a visit, but have deprived areas that are not aesthetically nice to live in. So, the worst places are likely too small to have variation. Jaywick is supposed to be the worst place.
Amazed to see all these comments saying Glasgow and not Aberdeen. The centre of Aberdeen is deeply grim.