Crap Towns: The 50 Worst Places to Live in the UK

Anyone who has had the good fortune to travel to the UK will hit many of the great sights and cities - London, Edinburgh, York, Durham, Bath and more. But in your quick travels you may have wondered what the British locals feel about those unassuming or even visually disagreeable towns you zip past by train or drive through to get to Stonehenge, the Lake District, Glencoe, Glasgow, searching for Robert the Bruce. At the beginnings of Rick Steves European Guidebooks, there are large maps of the country in question. All of the larger cities are marked in colours of black or grey. Black locations are "places of touristic interest". But the grey locations are "places of little or no touristic interest." What are these "grey places"? There is now a remedy - The book "Crap Towns" showcases and exposes those areas of grey, with despair, boredom, and poor council planning leading the way. The lack of jobs, a future, or simple healthy entertainment can lead to a downward spiral of alcoholism and chaz violence. Thatcher's dream fulfilled, and one unlikely to be fixed any decade soon. Readers of the UK "Idler" magazine submitted letters filled with memories, testimonial, fear, dismay, sadness, bemusement, hope for the distant future. All so that a book could be compiled of the 50 worst cities and towns the UK has to offer. I will only list a few of the 50 - the fun is in being surprised. Hackney, Hull, Peterhead, Croydon, Morecombe, St. Andrews, Bexhill-On-Sea and Brighton. The book is thoughtful, blunt, bitter and humanist. The letters written to the Idler and put into the book are thoughtful, funny and informative. The black and white photographs are perfectly chosen and will leave you invigorated in your bleak mood. (Although you may find photos of shattered cars, strewn garbage, misappropriated human waste and the polluted (and unnaturally warm) ocean next to Leiston nuclear power plant Because this is a British book with British readers in mind, it helps to have a good feel for British slang, culture and perhaps history. But no matter. I cannot recommend "Crap Towns 1" (or its equally strong sequel) highly enough.

A review can hardly do justice to the honesty and photography of this eclectic celebration of crap urban environments that surround everyone. Politicians may wish to ignore, and residents look past, the utter crap of their physical surroundings. It takes the Idler to open our eyes and admit the dreariness and squalor present in the corners (or centers) of our existence. Even the aesthetic judgments of the work can be taken as fact. "Ugly" may be debatable in most contexts, but not in any of those in this book. Thanks for helping us to admit that there are stones unturned in even the most celebrated cities. Under these stones, we find crap. Now what?