| Author | Message | ||
     Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I'd like to put forward the Asda Store at the Heads of the Valleys road. It opens out onto a panoramic view of one of Europes largest waste dumps. The scenery is only surpassed by the shoppers. What a fine selection of humanity! Homemade tats agogo, ripped tracky bottoms, bare midriffs spilling over their elasticated wastepants and stretch marks on teenagers that should have been in school. Jewellery worn like tribal fetishes and eyes like marbles, cold and long dead. That ladies and gentleman is what you call emotional sodomy. I prayed the car door would open as I walked camly and nonchalantly through the car park. Some parts of the valley feels as if the reality between dimensions is wareing very thin and reality is distorted. I think the isolation and lack of things you regard as normal socially can throw you. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
Peterlee town centre. No bookshops. Feels culturally dead. Lots of chavs. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
That's Haiku compared to my florid prose. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.110.243 |
It overshoots the haiku by one syllable. Here's a haiku edit: Peterlee town centre. No bookshops. A cultural pit. Lots of chavs. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.110.243 |
Here's a South Yardley haiku: The Swan Centre is being knocked down. Unless you want to join it, go. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.110.243 |
Second draft: The Swan Centre is being knocked down. Unless you want to join it, shift. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
Ok, I'll have a go. Reading is shit! Fact! Okay, not a haiku as such, but filled with truth and witty observation. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.110.243 |
Here's the haiku edit: Reading is shit! Fact! That's not 'reading' as in books but to rhyme with 'dead'. 10% of your royalties – OK lads? | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Neath and Port Talbot Where ambition goes to die Your shit speckled streets sap my spirit more than channel 5 | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
Pictures, guys, pictures! | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Of us or the places, Hubert? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
The places! I already found this bit about Afan Valley: http://www.digitaldesk.org/resources/afanvalley/valley.htm It was you who eulogized it, wasn't it? | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.35 |
It's a long time since I've been there but seeing as Griff mentioned the almost-legendary Heads of the Valleys road I have to mention the almost Lovecraftian village of Blaina, where it never stops raining, you can buy an entire street for the price of a bag of frozen peas, and none of the members of the local fire service are over four feet tall. Brynmawr is almost as bad | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.93.30.31 |
'and none of the members of the local fire service are over four feet tall.' Ha! | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.35 |
It's true! My parents went there recently and there was a fire and when the fire brigade all jumped out of the fire engine they were all tiny men, or so my mum told me over the phone in between fits of giggles | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
Was it a tiny fire engine? | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.35 |
It was compared to Shub Niggurath who'd burnt the toast again | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.93.30.31 |
:-) The closest I can compare to this is Poughkeepsie New York, and some parts of northern Jutland. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.35 |
I find Wales very Lovecraftian, from the valley mining towns like the above, to the dead and dying seaports that are just like that Spanish town they filmed DAGON in. And these are the places we used to go for summer holidays | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
Actually, some of the houses in Blaina don't look all that bad to me: http://www.fish4.co.uk/iad/homes/advert?adId=17930076&src=nestoria | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.35 |
I can't believe you looked! Yes I am quite shocked. When I was there there was NOTHING like that. Maybe I just mean the Blaina of my youth. Or my imagination... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
Oh my Gawd, there's a Surgery Road in Blaina . . . And--wait for it--a South Griffin Terrace  | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.76.215 |
Have you guys never been to Bradford, then? | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
"Crowned Curry Capital in 2004"! Surely it can't be as bad as all that. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.93.30.31 |
'Curry Capital' Ha! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
Apparently there's a new McDonalds-style place opening that sells indian food. I can't wait. But my short lines on Peterlee; if it wasn't for the charity shops and their pretty good bookshelves I just wouldn't go, it's that bleak. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
@ JPL There's a place worse than Brynmawr!  "I find Wales very Lovecraftian, from the valley mining towns like the above, to the dead and dying seaports that are just like that Spanish town they filmed DAGON in. And these are the places we used to go for summer holidays." Indeed. Did your parents ever take you to Connie Beach (sp?) near Port Talbot, JPL? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.125.200 |
Grim for me - would be some (not all)council estates. I've been a housing manager and a rehousing officer in social housing. I met loads of tenants who cared about their houses and the estates but a minority kept spoiling it for all. Every person should have a reasonable place to live in but how is it achievable? 1992196%2C00.html,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1992196,00.ht ml http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3380998.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797 084 | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Blimey, I used to live a mile away from the estate in that second link! | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.125.200 |
Sorry the first didn't link work but you get the idea. More youth clubs etc perhaps - some real involvement with teenagers and how to get them into something that will interest them? | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
@ Allybird Octavia Hill | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.125.200 |
Where I worked in Hulme and Moss Side - they were targeted for "regeneration" but as a showcase and then nothing, for all the larger housing estates - apparently. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Have we reached a tipping point where there's no going back or getting much better? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I'm not even getting into this one... | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.125.200 |
I know Zed and you are not allowed the argument of transportation of people to an island somewhere... a long way away. Not doing anything will bite us on the bum one day :>) | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
How about putting them all in a big pit and burning them alive, whilst Albie masturbates on their screaming cripsy faces? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.125.200 |
Actually -Blackpool is pretty grim. It should win the grimmest place. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.163.48.60 |
Blackpool's ok on a warm sunny day in the morning in the Spring when it's empty and the streets are clean. But come mid-morning the people start arriving... It's nice how the Lovecraftian thing stays with us through that ad for that house in Blaina being on a site called "fish4homes" - where's Dagon when you need him/it? | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.208.214.26 |
Probably setting up Homes4fish | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.170 |
I arrived twice with the ferry (from Belgium) in Hull, and that was a very weird place. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.18.175.213 |
The Afan valley is incredible. There's a row of houses in one of the remotest areas with a shop the size of the Doctors Tardis, emblazoned with the words Hoover Repairs - and that's it. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 92.18.175.213 |
The shop sits isolated opposite this row. It looks at one time there were plans to build houses there but the builders simply uptools and left, leaving only that creepy little 'shop'. | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.4.67 |
Luton bus station - specifically the bogs. The broken ultra-violet lighting they put in to keep the heroin addicts out just added to the effect. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
The UK itself is the grimmest place in the UK: our entire country is an absolute hell hole. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
Nay! Just go where there aren't people.  The bogs in the fast food places in Newcastle have those lights in the loo. It's put me off going in them. I just got these old library books yesterday about housing in the early seventies and sixties. There were modern council estates in them and the look of futuristicness(?) and hope was so poignant knowing that people soon turned them into dumps. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
But people are everywhere - that's the problem. Thw world would be a lovely place if I were the only one in it. :-) My great fantasies - the daydreams that sustain me - are of a Last man on Earth scenario, with me careering around the empty streets and countryside. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
I used to have that one. But I like my family very much, too. And that Dalai Lama - could he come along? At least till he started spitting at me. Went to an anxiety management thing yesterday. I told them my hobbies (the writing) helped me get through things and brightened things up. The woman running it asked what hobbies people had, and virtually everyone there had NOTHING but telly as a hobby. I felt like walking out. Also I came to the conclusion I'm not depressed but rather mad, so I might not be going back. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
And our Gerbils! I love our gerbils. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"Also I came to the conclusion I'm not depressed but rather mad" Embrace that madness, Tony. Seriously. You are simply non-mainstream. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 90.203.130.34 |
I used to have those 'Last Man On Earth' daydreams when I was a kid. My favourite bit of Day of the Triffids is before Bill Masen meets anyone | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I still have them, mate, particularly when the dirty black dog of depression sets in for a spell. I also have murder fantasies, but that's another story entirely... ;-) | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.100.119 |
Hey - if anyone calls you mad, Tony - take it as a compliment. I do. Mad fuckers - all of us here :>) Or mildy eccentric. As a child I was different, introvert, shy - didn't play with other children (which was hard because all children want to fit in )but as an adult I wouldn't change anything. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.227.24 |
I used to have those dreams too. In my case it was after reading Serling's Twilight Zone episode "Where is Everybody?" and some of the stories in Bradbury' THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES. Full marks for impact. Later I discovered Sartre and found I wasn't the only one who . . . er hated people. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
The trick is to see people as fake. Just means alienating yourself from everyone and setting up a delusion account in your mind banks. I could drive a car through a crowded cinema foyer and feel nothing more than peckish for over priced sweets. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
The only thing that stops me from becoming a serial killer is the aversion to all that physical labour. :-o | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
...and prison showers. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Aye, those too. Leaky faucets, grubby soap, cold water, anal rape. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.156.110.243 |
And I was just about to ask what you all had planned for the weekend. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
This sounds awful but I was actually angry at these people for letting themselves be so dull. one guy witha shell suit and kojak cut was in his early 20s and was not into ANYTHING. He was afraid to go in shops and stuff. One poor old woman had split up from her husband and her kids had grown up. 'What are you interested in?' the course woman said. 'Nothing' said the old lady. She said how she had been a housewife her whole life. 'What did you like at school?' the course woman said. 'Drawing' said the old lady. This devastated me. Marie hates out cluttered house and stupid organisation skills. But the other day she met her posh boss and saw his beautiful house, and then met his teenage (19 yr old!) son who snapped at him to drop him off 'near school but not AT school' and then asked for some money. The kid never said please or thanks once. We all got extra hugs off Marie that night; she could hardly let go of us. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
BTW people in the street have remarked on our kids manners, and the fact they never drop litter. It means so much. I don't hector the kids to be good, just try and lead by example, remind them how folk might feel. It makes me glum these things seem to be falling out of favour. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Do you home educate them, Tony? My friend home educates his son and he's WAY AHEAD of kids his age. He only has to do academic work in the morning! In the afternoon it's stage school and games/hiking, etc. Jammy so and so | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
Nope. They'd like it, though. And me; I'm just not that smart. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
You come across as a smart and thoughtful chap, Tony! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.145.131.242 |
It's maths and stuff, science I can't do. It might be nice to learn with them. | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
I thought I couldn't do science and maths. I've finished Chemistry and Biology at A-level, grade A. You want any advice, just ask. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
Griff, how old are you? I'm genuinely interested, and not joshing. Were you a mature student, or are you the right age to take A-levels? | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.177.98 |
Just a guess, but Griff strikes me as probably being in his mid-twenties. Let me know if I'm close, Griff! | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
Zed - RCMBs answer to Dorothy Parker. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.249.146 |
No, mate, it's a serious question. Most folk, I can take a stab at their age, but you're a slippery one. Ooh-er! :-) | ||
| Griff (Griff) Username: Griff Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.100 |
*dusts down thread* L & G I give you Swansea. A pretty shitty city. When you walk through the main doors of the station and hit Hight Street carved into the floor are the words "Ambition is Critical". Sadly it open out onto building work and shit 60s and 70s architecture. |