I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time • Hacker News Board

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#41

Post by Apocryphon » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:26 AM UTC

mvdtnz wrote: post #40

amiga386 wrote: post #18

> 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…

That author on Slough, > Ricky Gervais encapsulated its brutalist new town grim with ‘The Office’ before giving up and writing lame punching-down anti-woke “gags” for the educationally subnormal That's a very strange reading on Gervais' post-The Office career. After The Office he did things like Extras, a sitcom about extras on TV and film sets, Derek, an emotional series about a well-meaning care worker who thinks i…

There’s also his standup career of being extra atheist as if the world has never seen a famous lapsed Christian Brit

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#42

Post by econ » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:36 AM UTC

Without a definition of a shit town I can't make much sense of what he wrote here. I'm tempted to define it myself but I won't fall for the trap.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#43

Post by refulgentis » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:41 AM UTC

casey2 wrote: post #22

protocolture wrote: post #3

Be harder to identify the non crap towns tbh.

It's exactly this kind of structuralism induced fatalism that makes more towns than ought shit. If you know a town is shit, it's your moral obligation to tell them so that their kids and smart residents move out. Post 2000s progressive seem to think that Towns, religions and culture can form opinions. They are trying to be "empathetic" and so get tricked by scammers who personally benefit from these horrible situatio…

What?

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#44

Post by klooney » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:44 AM UTC

> And when hope was actually something people might consider voting for?

A link to an American politician, of course.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#45

Post by Kon-Peki » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:47 AM UTC

Tourniquet wrote: post #17

My home town featured (33rd!). We considered it vindication!

Vindication like what Ohioans would have felt when Charles Dickens visited America and said that St. Louis was a nice enough place, but “not likely ever to vie, in point of elegance or beauty, with Cincinnati”?

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#46

Post by jdietrich » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:50 AM UTC

Twenty 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 to the same broad spectrum of bland mediocrity.

Today, I think it's clear who would be being laughed at by whom. The fates of places have so radically diverged that we no longer have a sense of collective identity. All of the places listed in Crap Towns are now unrecognisable, for better or worse. Those familiar shops are now gone; in some places they have been replaced by artisan bakeries and pop-up boutiques, while in others they have been replaced by charity shops or nothing at all. Half the leisure centres have shut and we all know which half.

The upper middle class might have become more humourless and puritanical, but I think that's a subconscious self-defence mechanism, a manifestation of noblesse oblige without real obligation. The working class are too angry to laugh and certainly aren't willing to be laughed at. We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it.

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#47

Post by zeroq » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 3:53 AM UTC

A fellow Elbonian made a book [1] depicting the ugliest places in our town.

Despite the tongue-in-a-cheek mood it's a great piece of nostalgia trip spiced with some interesting local history lessons.

He also have an automotive youtube channel dedicated to popular old cars and he loves to film them in these obscure and sordid locations mentioned in the book.

EDIT: fun note - when MS released their first digital encyclopedia in Elbonia, somewhere in mid 90's, the Elbonia entry, apart from having accurate information about the country and up to date statistics had an illustration image subtitled "Elbonians in front of typical dwelling" depicting something like this: https://strojeludowe.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1.3-600x...

[1] https://paskudnik.com/strona-glowna/6--ebook-paskudnik-warsz...

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#48

Post by beachy » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 4:18 AM UTC

mvdtnz wrote: post #40

amiga386 wrote: post #18

> 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…

That author on Slough, > Ricky Gervais encapsulated its brutalist new town grim with ‘The Office’ before giving up and writing lame punching-down anti-woke “gags” for the educationally subnormal That's a very strange reading on Gervais' post-The Office career. After The Office he did things like Extras, a sitcom about extras on TV and film sets, Derek, an emotional series about a well-meaning care worker who thinks i…

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!

John Betjeman (1906 - 1984)

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#49

Post by labrador » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 4:20 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #41

mvdtnz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That author on Slough, > Ricky Gervais encapsulated its brutalist new town grim with ‘The Office’ before giving up and writing lame punching-down anti-woke “gags” for the educationally subnormal That's a very strange reading on Gervais' post-The Office career. After The Office he did things like Extras, a sitcom about extras on TV and film sets, Derek, an emotional series about a well-meaning care worker who thinks i…

There’s also his standup career of being extra atheist as if the world has never seen a famous lapsed Christian Brit

I concluded Noah's Arc was bollocks when I was 8 so I don't know why he goes on about it at his age

Re: I wrote a book called “Crap Towns”. It seemed funny at the time

#50

Post by parpfish » Sat, Apr 26, 2025, 4:22 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #46

Twenty 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…

Well put.

A few decades of compounding inequality transforms what used to be good natured ribbing amongst chums into bullying.