Sink Pink

[lupestripe]

I've just dyed my hair bright pink again - it needed to be done - the faded candy floss colour just looked awful and unkempt. I was starting to turn into Boris Johnson, just without the right-wing views.

Still, what I have found out today is that Middlesbrough is not the type of town to be walking around as a guy with bright pink hair. I have been shouted at and laughed at by strangers who, under any other circumstance, would just have ignored me. This doesn't particularly bother me as it comes with the territory but WHY does it have to be this way? Surely the colour of my hair is irrelevant to anything. Sometimes I despair.

The other thing I noticed is that all these people were pillioring me from far away - either from the other side of the street or from cars that sped off rather quickly. Quite clearly these intellectually sub-normal people thought they were being witty and intelligent yet quite clearly they were cowards. They remind me of the 14 year old schoolboy who calls people a "wanker" on internet chatrooms behind the safety of his computer screen (and in my line of work, I've had enough of THOSE insults to last me a lifetime).

Still, a girl in Leeds commented on how much she liked my hair plus I have just booked tickets to see one of my favourite German bands, Oomph!, play Frankfurt in November as a special birthday treat (they are playing the evening before my birthday). Indeed it's going to be quite a week - spending my birthday in Frankfurt with Wolfie before returning to Manchester for the meet. Definitely something to look forward to *bounces*

Comments

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an entry for the Idlers "Crap towns" book. Actually I think Middlesbrough may of made it into both books.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

The problem I have with those books is that they are often written with a southern based media conceit. Middlesbrough is NOT the worst place to live in the country - there are many hellholes in London; Nottingham has the biggest gang and knife presence in the country; Liverpool has massive social problems etc etc. The problem is Middlesbrough, Hull, Goole etc are easy targets.

Generally, I have little fear walking around this town which is more than can be said for a lot of other towns and cities across the country. It is also dependent on what you want - living in Henley would bore me to tears as there is no nightlife and no excitement. It's all based on opinion and skewed statistics (and I can prove that).

[alexf0x.livejournal.com]

It's all based on opinion and skewed statistics (and I can prove that).

How? The idler books were done by popular public vote, and...

A) It used government statistics from the stats page for each town.

B) It was based on readers experience of the towns (not just people passing though, but also those who live or used to live there).

C) The team who put the book together did visit every nominated location (to see if it was as bad as people claimed it to be).

D) There where quite a few towns from down south (actually most where from down south, oh and London and London boroughs featured heavily), oh and the winning town in book two was Luton (although Middlesbrough made #10).

E) I could agree with the reviews, Huntingdon (7 miles from where I live) got in the first book and so did Bedford (used to live around there). While nether place has a crime problem, both are frankly shit places to be, I can testify to that and I am not going to defend them.

F) As for Hull, I've met a few people from Hull, as in born and raised. None of them said anything good about the place.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I am more thinking about the "Best And Worst Places To Live In The UK" documentary last year as our council threatened the makers of the programme because they used inaccurate government statistics to generate their point. That may be true here too although I am unsure of that.

The thing is, it's very easy to make any town look bad. I used to live in Cambridge and could make that look bad with the right picture. I don't doubt the research, nor Middlesbrough's place in the top ten, it just seems to be a very easy scapegoat. Also, what they do is take one area of the town and not the whole town. Some of the southern outskirts of the town are amongst the most desirable places to live in the North-East so it's not an accurate or fair portrayal.

The problem with any popular public vote is that, often, the public are easily swayed. It's very easy to slag a place off on reputation with a blinkered view than look at things objectively. Assumedly, the makers of the book did this. However, the mentalities of the North and the South are different and I would argue Northerners are more likely to be denigrate their own home town. The impression I got with Boro was the views were firmly entrenched in the 1980s rather than taking into account the significant regeneration and gentrification that has happened here in the last ten years.

Luton is a town similar to Middlesbrough and indeed, it's another example of a Crap Town. I have seen both books and do feel that they are a little unfair to a lot of the towns that they say are "crap". As I say, it depends what you want - if you want the hustle and bustle then you are going to get crime, prostitution etc too. I'd rather live in Middlesbrough than Harrogate for example even though Harrogate is perceived to be most desirable. Again with Huntingdon - I would say that's a very boring town rather than particularly crap. At least there is a race course there and a direct link to London.

I believe Hull gets a bad press too and the people I have spoken to agree. It may be a bit crap but doesn't deserve the level of vilification that it gets.

I guess in many ways, most places are shit places to be and it all depends on what you are after.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

P.S. In the "Best And Worst Places To Live In The UK", Manchester finished 9th. Surely that makes very little sense when you think about it logically - ALL of Manchester is crap to live in - the THIRD biggest city in England?

I get the impression the same is true of Crap Towns as well - there may be parts that are bad but you can't write off a whole place because of one area.