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I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
231–240 of 340 posts
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#232[flagged]
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I though I had a decent command of English language, even if I am not a native speaker, but I have no ide what is "naive structuralism" or "overwrought reductionism" in this context.
Would any of you care to elaborate? I am serious, I am not familiar much with the UK political scene so can't tie these normal sounding phrases to anything, and would honestly appreciate some help.
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#233Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…
Yet another signal of the sad state of affairs is that you probably genuinely think we're "on the brink" and not well over the cliff, Wile E.-style. Buildings burned during leftist protests (whether or not leftists actually set the fires is up for debate), and the Capital was ransacked by a mob looking to overthrow an election.
That was half a decade ago.
The interim has consisted of a corrupt centrist presidential administration that spent most of its time denying that things are getting worse ("It's not a recession"; "We didn't fumble the Afghanistan draw-down"; "Those weren't significant bank failures"; "That's not a genocide"), followed by a corrupt fascist admin that is openly dedicated to making things worse.
All the while, the intellectuals who understand what is happening - not just what will happen, what is happening - have been begging anyone who will listen to take the situation seriously - to understand that their attempted conservation of the previous normal is actually vascillation, while the ground falls out from under us. But my property values! But my American dream! But my rules-based order! They're already dead. And we can't start rebuilding until people with money and influence face it.
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#234There's a lot of honest reflection here that you don't often get from writers revisiting their earlier work. I think it captures something important about how the culture around humor, offense, and public discourse has shifted. It's easy to blame "people being too sensitive" or to nostalgize the past, but the truth is more complicated: humor that punches up tends to age better than humor that punches down, and the line between the two can shift as society changes.
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#235Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged t…
If you recognize deep inequality but feel powerless (or complicit), doubling down on seriousness might feel like the only "responsible" move.
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#236Loved the fact that this post didn't go where I expected it to (or at least, didn't remain there). That a book like this probably wouldn't be published today, or would be less popular today, is a point that has been made many times by many people, about many different books, TV shows, jokes, etc. But the author actually moves on from there; the observation is that even in his own opinion , the same joke isn't funny t…
Humor is as much about context as content
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Gini coefficient of the UK is about the same now as it was then: https://equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed/ What has actually changed? A whole bunch of other economic malaise, but also perceptions, amplified to your personal taste by social media.
What has actually changed is that thirty years ago, the ratio between house prices and average earnings was about 4. By twenty years ago it had doubled and, most importantly, it has been at that level ever since with no real sign of dropping [1]. This is a structural change. We now have at least one, and perhaps two, generations of people who can't really alter their economic situation through hard work. That's the c…
Interest rates were much higher back then which accounts for most of the change. The base rate was around 6% through most of the nineties (it hit 15% at its peak).
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
> quite possibly the most spirit-crushingly tedious town in Kent. This is an extremely high bar to hit in a county that also contains Ashford.
Ashford at least has a high-speed rail connection to London. If nominations were to open today, I'd vote Dover.
It used to have one to Paris however when you look at how they voted in the referendum you can see why it doesn't anymore.
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#239> There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years I will, it's ChavTowns. https://web.archive.org/web/20061013053524/http://www.chavto... Still running as https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/ Also the owner is giving up on it as of the start of this year -- mainly because nobody visits the site; churnalists just freeboot it and they rank higher on goo…
Now that's an interesting trend. It's no longer feasible to have an independent web site, because nobody will visit it because you don't have the page rank. Journalists that do find your site copy your data and may add a link (that noone vists). Their pagerank is much higher, so they get all search engine links and all the ads, for your content.
Between that, Google reposting your content and AI's hoovering up everything in site it hardly seems worth publishing online anymore.
Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time
#240> There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years I will, it's ChavTowns. https://web.archive.org/web/20061013053524/http://www.chavto... Still running as https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/ Also the owner is giving up on it as of the start of this year -- mainly because nobody visits the site; churnalists just freeboot it and they rank higher on goo…
Yikes, I spent 15 years living in one of the Top 10 and my summers in another one. I probably agree, though. The rot was showing in most of those by the late 80s and they went very swiftly downhill after that. To counter those depressing places, these towns and villages seem lovely: https://www.thetimes.com/best-places-to-live/location-guide/...
I can't see the list because of the paywall but my guess is they are all medium sized market towns. Large enough to have the facilities you need but not so big that they become impersonal.