What is the most rubbish county in England?

I felt that the "worst state" poll generated a lot of good discussion and I learned a lot of things about my own country that I never knew before.

they're all great imo

however, my southern brethren in hertfordshire, i think they have the least going for them

i reckon middlesex is still a county btw

somerset

Fuck, I just copied this out of wikipedia. Is Middlesex a particularly bad county?

no. it might not be a county. they're always buggering about with these things. it might be in "greater london" or something.

Herefordshire
Rutland
Staffordshire

what are these places like?

this is so hard, but lincolnshire is an early favourite to get my vote. but then again i haven't been there, just going on hearsay

Of the ones I've been to I'm voting Bucks. Feel guilty doing that though as it was seen through the eyes of someone being shown around by a drunk older brother at uni there.

yeah, wiki says it's not strictly a county no more, though given that it's a millennium old, people still use it informally. will check if "avon" still exists too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesex

Yes, I just read that it got split up into several of the surrounding counties and Greater London over a period of time. Also, I went with "Ceremonial Counties," of which there are 48, whereas there are 83 "Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties"

herefordshire is truly lovely, i've been there quite a bit and have nothing but praise - the word 'bucolic' becomes it
rutland is small and quaint and is mostly made up of a lake so can't really be all that bad
staffs is part shropshire loveliness part west midlands industry and part peak-district uplandness, has my dad's university in it and a load of great canals

Like Essex won't win this in a landslide!

I thought Avon had become BANES (Bath, Avon + Northeast Somerset) but that's not on the list either and driving to Bristol I pass a few signs welcoming me to Avon, so I dunno what it is now. But I don't want to vote for it so it doesn't matter, I suppose.

My first reaction was Bedfordshire but it probably has nice bits that I don't know about.

Essex is so far from being the most rubbish county it isn't even funny

My nan lives in Essex and urgo I have fond memories of it.

somerset

― لوووووووووووووووووووول (lex pretend), Thursday, 4 March 2010 12:24 (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Based on waht, may I ask?

North Essex, Constable country, is some of the best and most idyllic scenery in the LAND. South Essex brings the human drama, North Essex brings the 'oh shit rolling hills, butterflies, beatific fields, Saxon churchyards, fuck me'

essex has really nice bits (clue: not near london)

the only thing i can remember about herefordshire is the claim that fred west's malfeasance should be seen in the context of the high rates of incest among agricultural labourers there

Bedfordshire is great because of the song "Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire".

Come on, Essex is irredeemably shit. And I've *been* to the supposedly "nice" bits. But I might just be saying that because I was accidentally born there.

based on having lived in the fucking rural shithole for 8 years

xpp

yeah can we please not bias this against one's personal experiences of a county

So instead we're supposed to vote on non-personal biases of places we've never been to? Fuck that, hatred of counties is a deeply personal thing and should be kept pure in that way.

like, my ex is from herefordshire and we had a bad breakup but you won't find anything but praise from me about that place where they all talk like they're from The Archers

like i say, lincolnshire has struck me as being abysmal but what do i know

yeah can we please not bias this against one's personal experiences of a county

what, so uninformed prejudice about places we have no experience of is a better way of judging this?

i phrased that badly - yeah personal OBSERVATION is valid and desirable, but one's own bad experiences within a county should be regarded as separate to that county unless they're part of a universal malaise

Lincolnshire is actually very pretty in a bleak, windswept North Sea kind of way. The bit around The Wash is gorgeous!

Mind you, my experience of most counties is meandering around back roads trying to waste time to avoid getting to the next venue too early.

l0u1s jagg3r, thread cop

the only things i can remember of lincolnshire are 'the potatoes and the windmill and the shit'
and the claim of david cameron that his family own a few fields near scunthorpe, which transpired to be several thousand acres of the best farmland in the country

or just let people vote and discuss however they want?

dammit i just want people to consider all the options rather than be all 'oh i had a shit time in x therefore i'm voting for it' straight outta the gate

What about Surrey? What goes on there?

Fair enough, I had a shit time growing up in Worcester but I'm never going to vote Worcestershire as worst county.

xpost

you better bloody not ;)

I think that "I was born/grew up in..." is a bit more than "I had a shit time there once" and certainly entitles one to validly hate a place.

Essex is a notorious shithole and "there are some pretty bits in the far North" does not save it.

guessing i won't have time to learn how to use photoshop to make a straight outta (the) compton (that is about a five min drive from me) picture before it becomes an xpost.

lol xpost.

What about Surrey? What goes on there?

i have read defences of it, but i've been there and it is quite a lot like you might expect.

I could vote for Buckinghamshire fairly easily if not for Bletchley Park. Also the countryside there seems pretty enough, if dull and flat. I like to imagine just how pissed off the residents of twee Bletchley village were when Milton Keynes appeared right next door.

My possible votes for Beds and Bucks are real narcissism of small differences stuff since I grew up in Wiltshire which is also obviously in the "pleasant but really fucking dull countryside, biggest town is a shithole" category but I am more familiar with the smaller towns and villages and therefore have some positive memories of them

yeah, i'm pretty sure it's surrey.

btw if we're going by personal experience, one of the great times of my life was spent in a narrow-boat in worcestershire and the west midlands, plus i'm a worcs cricket club fan, so colonel poo has escaped admonishment :D

What about Surrey?

the most wooded county in Great Britain, with 22.4% coverage compared to a national average of 11.8%

with all of these im thinking of the countryside rather than the cities

id even k what the big city in wilts is. devises?

Swindon!

What about Surrey? What goes on there?

― Tom D (Tom D.), Thursday, 4 March 2010 12:42 (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

All a bit middle class, nice scenery, has a nice horse racing ground, nice enough to give me a degree living crime-free and all just a bit pleasent. Nothing spectacular but not worth voting MOST RUBBISH.

swindon is a bit nightmarish despite xtc, salisbury's slightly posher but still not *great* iirc

surrey deserves a better name

it should be renamed clackmannanshire

Wiltshire has White Horses therefore it is OK.

All I know of Surry is "fuck off back to Surrey you posh home counties git!" which is what they shout at you in Essex if you have a posh accent. (Hertfordshire, thank you, not Surrey.)

btw i discovered yesterday evening on our map of britain kept by the toilet that surrey and bucks share a border for a couple of miles

the discovery made me incredibly excited

Wiltshire is mystical, man. It has all the best stone circles!

i don't want to be a hater, but try to get inspired by this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertfordshire

stevie t may or may not be willing to make a defence?

tbh cambridgeshire is p wack, as a county, but we have cambridge motherfucker

xposts, Salisbury has nice bits but you have to get stuck in traffic for 2 hours if you try to go anywhere near it - but white horses + Stonehenge + Avebury if you like that sort of thing, yes

hahaha wait hertfordshire is a GREAT shout

The answer to this is Rutland. There is nothing of interest there.

Avebury almost made think being a hippy was a good idea (xxxpost)

Hertfordshire has Roman bits and St.Albans to make it bearable.

Also a couple of Eleanor crosses and any county with an Eleanor Cross in it is alright.

rutland *sounds* kind of balla

Although Berkshire is pretty shit as well.

Challops maybe but for me Hampshire is the other obvious option- Basingstoke is pretty much the most boring town i've ever been to more than once and Southampton is a bit scummy other than seeing some nice boats once in a while.

hertfordshire has parts of chilterns, surrey has the best of the north downs
they contain areas of civilization and are next to london
clearly neither should be mentioned here

My folks lived in Hertfordshire when I was born - I have no memories of it since we moved 18 months later, but I want to think it's not that bad?

I thought Rutland hadn't existed since 1971...

Berkshire can go fuck itself but I've already voted for Essex.

I'm leaning towards Surrey - commuter satellite town stockbroker hell.

Dorking was once said to have the purest air in the country. Then they built the M25, a rucking great fist of noise and concrete along the beautiful North Downs. All the good bits of Surrey are in West Kent and Sussex I think.

There's some nice stuff, obv, but less of it is springing to mind than with other counties. I'll hold my fire for a few days just in case anyone makes a good argument for it.

Oh, it won't let me. Bye, Surrey.

it came back like ballroom dancing

xpost re rutland

City of Bristol
Cambridgeshire
Cornwall
Cumbria
Devon
Dorset
East Riding of Yorkshire
East Sussex
Gloucestershire
Greater London
Greater Manchester
Hampshire
Kent
Lancashire
City of London
Merseyside
Norfolk
North Yorkshire
Oxfordshire
Somerset
South Yorkshire
Suffolk
Wiltshire

All pretty great.

hey guys, what about Cheshire

let us think on Cheshire

voted for west yorkshire because it has leeds

Dudley is the worst place I've ever been in my life (in England that is, obv. there's worse places in Scotland), but I'm not going to hold the West Midlands responsible for that

I was going to send Surrey down the dumper but then remembered that there are pretty bits and I've been walking in them, and one of the most picturesque pubs is in Surrey.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2700299687_1efd43ab7f.jpg

wtf @ number of people voting for surrey, it's like they haven't HEARD of knowle park or cobham common ffs

I was trying to remember where Eton was. Berkshire. Well, that's a black mark against Berkshire then.

Dudley is the worst place I've ever been in my life (in England that is, obv. there's worse places in Scotland), but I'm not going to hold the West Midlands responsible for that

― Tom D (Tom D.), Thursday, March 4, 2010 1:00 PM (55 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

west yorkshire is essentially leeds-bradford and about three football pitches of countryside, so i am going to hold leeds against it.

there is this theory i have that staffordshire might be the ur-england of victoriana, bull terriers, agricultural football, exurban wastelands etc
someone dissuade me from this lazy caricature

Pots and Arnold Bennett

stoke city are not representative of staffs as a whole

Best towel boys in England

synecdoche, staffs

^^^yes

Challops maybe but for me Hampshire is the other obvious option

I went to The New Forest last weekend. Not all that.

On Staffs, Lichfield isn't a bad city iirc. Some ok countryside round Cannock maybe?

Bedfordshire for me. Bedford kills it - ugly centre & rough as fuck. Nice river I guess & some appealingly crazy sects (eg Neo-Southcottians who rent out the house they're saving for Jesus to stay in on his return). But the whole county is in the life-sapped-by-London zone, and it always looks a bit flat dull, mud-and-quarries when I'm passing through. Luton. John Bunyan. Leighton Buzzard.

I live in North Hertfordshire. It's alright, but as mentioned upthread, it's uninspiring. It's just THERE. Nothing really happens, there aren't a load of great monuments or exciting cities or towns, but then we don't get earthquakes or houses falling into the sea or dinosaurs, so I guess that's why people come to live here. A nice quiet place not far from London.

cheshire is sweet.

w.yorks has some good stuff outside leeds/bradford, maybe not enough

hey what's the twee-est county

that's the poll that needs to be made

gonna go with merseyside

^lol boris

lancs. is the tweeest county, no bother.

Surrey FTW if only for the people in Wimbledon and Morden who add it as an affectation to their addresses, as if it makes it any better.

dorset is the twee-est imho

Twee-est names there, for sure

dorset is twee as in chocolate box, lancs is twee as in the modus vivendi

I voted London unthinkingly but West Yorkshire is perhaps worse - Leeds obviously but I was surprised how cold and unwelcoming I found the countryside too when I was there.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ezz8wFq6bwo/SBI2trqch8I/AAAAAAAAAiE/-aEKbr-gdAI/s320/dorset_knob.jpg

concur w/ dorset.

Dorset is pretty fucking twee. It's the steam train and the whole "look! Dinosaurs!" thing they've got going that does it.

(NB I heart Dorset)

It's wuvly

you won't find anything but praise from me about that place where they all talk like they're from The Archers

The Archers is Worcestershire. Around the East Worcs/Inkberrow area, iirc. I've never actually listened to The Archers, but I am from Worcs and would have particular places and buildings that apparently feature in the soap pointed out to me by family members when driving around the area. Good times.

the whole "look! Dinosaurs!" thing they've got going that does it.

whuuut

http://www.thedinosaurmuseum.com/

Jurassic Coast?

The Archers is Worcestershire

As my father kept telling me as a kid. I do know this, although the similarity in voice is undeniable. Hereford & Worcestershire used to be a thing, way back when. His upbringing was all about Droitwich and Worcester.

Lancs is twee-est yeah (lol nick park) but Merseyside is like they took a part of Lancs and worked on it really, really hard until it became some sort of twee lodestone

(maybe the Herefordshire accent is a bit more drawling and West Country than the Worcs)

Surrey FTW if only for the people in Wimbledon and Morden who add it as an affectation to their addresses, as if it makes it any better.

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Thursday, 4 March 2010 13:31 (15 minutes ago)

Almost as bad as the people who claim that Kingston is part of London.

His upbringing was all about Droitwich and Worcester.

homie

Lancs is twee-est yeah (lol nick park) but Merseyside is like they took a part of Lancs and worked on it really, really hard until it became some sort of twee lodestone

i think you're confusing twee and emo

i think he's confusing twee and liverpool

i know several fairly obscure contemporary liverpudlian bands who are twee as all fuck

although dear old nigel blackwell would probably have a few words to say about my pronouncement

Luton. John Bunyan. Leighton Buzzard.

Smelly bricks.

Tho I'd find it hard to totally knock Bedford as on several occasions I've totally and v pleasingly a-holed in the Swan Hotel, leading once a hotel porter telling a butt-naked me 'You cannot sleep here, you are a fire hazard'.

So, um, yeah, possibly Bedfordshire in fact.

I can't remember which county I voted for, one of the rubbish southern ones though.

I've never listened to the Archers but in most of Worcestershire the accent is more of a West Country/Black Country hybrid than Herefordshire.

xposts

Challops maybe but for me Hampshire is the other obvious option- Basingstoke is pretty much the most boring town i've ever been to more than once and Southampton is a bit scummy other than seeing some nice boats once in a while.

I'm going to defend the honour of the land of my birth! Er, it's alright. New Forest (which *is* all that, thank you), Test Valley, Winchester, Farley Mount, early 90s raves, the Solent...

I haven't been to a lot of these, but the place I'd like to live least is Lincolnshire. Just seems really grindingly grim and bleak and terrible weather.

yeah, Worcs is definitely more Black Country, Herefordshire more sloowwww and earthy

nonoe of these places are as rubbish as leitrim, just so you all know.

i know several fairly obscure contemporary liverpudlian bands who are twee as all fuck

ah yes, obscure bands, always representative of a city

I would have thought this was easily Tyne & Wear

tyne and wear surely gets points for the tropical weather?

http://www.thespoiler.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/newcastle-fans.jpg

3 hours late but I will hear nothing bad about the Dorchester Dinosaur Museum, don't actually remember what's in the museum but I still have the mug I got there when I was 6 and it is still rad
RIP the "Hungry Dinosaur" cafe round the corner from it in the 80s
dunno if Hardy country can really be "twee" though exactly

Dorchester Dinosaur Museum - went there six months ago with the kids, biggest pile-of-shite rip-off ever, sorry to besmirch your mug

OTOH...

Cerne Abbas giant - least twee ancient monument in the UK?

Think it was fairly conclusively determined not to be actually ancient but it's pretty un-twee

surrey worst county in england?! wtf is up with you people

i mean isn't it a fairly desirable place to live? are we playing opposites here?

are we to consider phil brown wrt east riding (affiliation) or tyne and wear (birth)?

i mean isn't it a fairly desirable place to live? are we playing opposites here?

i could definitely f/w surrey, but you know, i don't have a city job, don't vote tory, play golf, blah blah blah

was born in kingston tho

I'm gonna vote for for west midlands because i've spent a lot of time in coventry and a bit of time in birmingham and they both suck

nobody has defended cheshire with any degree of adequacy yet; 'it's sweet' is insufficient

compared to 'it sucks' it's plenty sufficient.

chris marker was so taken with the local cats that he lived in macclesfield for a short time in the early 1990s

cheshire is totally sweet, does anyone want to disagree?

chris marker was so taken with the local cats that he lived in macclesfield for a short time in the early 1990s

― nakhchivan, Thursday, March 4, 2010 5:15 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha

i went to cheshire and it was fine. nicer than manchester.

(i mean yeah, that's why people hate it right?)

isn't it just a rainier version of essex

Norfolk is shit. Flat and dull.

i thought it was full of footballers' mansions and little else

ledge what the fuck the broads are A+++

nah norfolk's got some game

i mean yeah along with lincolnshire it's inbreeding central but come on, plenty of norfolk is lovely

Oh yah I forgot I play golf in surrey most weekends but on bank holidays i go to my holiday cottage in the broads to sail my fucking boat.

it was fine. nicer than manchester

this is a defense of cheshire I can't get behind.

Broads = ponciest waterways in the country.

Norfolk has pretty sea-bits and WOODHENGE which makes it instantly awesome.

i believe cheadle hulme is home to the only legit ninja outside of japan

someeone call the khmer rouge on these bourgie insurgents

there is plenty of good wildlife along the broads, also you clearly weren't an arthur ransome nut as a youth. i was. deal with it.

have also holidayed in the broads twice and loved it each time although as already stated the western waterways are even lovelier

Cheshire cats - kind of smug, don't you think?

right so surrey is the worst county in england because people with too much money and no taste live there?

Norfolk deserves respect. We took a chunk of it it back from the sea, that is total HARD MAN stuff.

Struggling to think of good defence of Cheshire. I've enjoyed brief trips there - kind of chilled provincial suburbanity that I am at home with. Crewe is probably a marvel of Victorian engineering or some shit. Also cheese.

^^ thanks to dutch engineers afaik

right so surrey is the worst county in england because people with too much money and no taste live there?

― archer's goon (tpp), Thursday, March 4, 2010 5:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

should have been a pic thread

now for the big one: defend lincolnshire

if all we're defending cheshire from is just confusion/ignorance then the ninja fact will do imo. but in a spirit of generosity: the accents are great and the skies are for some reason fantastic

crossed out surrey, forgot to type essex

now for the big one: defend lincolnshire

Birthplace of Margaret Thatcher

i mean i'm not saying i'd move there. the mcmansions + gated communities are pretty awful.
but i grew up in twickenham and spent a lot of time in kingston as a kid + have some fond memories.
if we're talking 'what is the worst place to live' then i don't see how surrey can fit in there.
if we're talking 'what is the place full of people that have a different set of values to me that i find repulsive' then sure

... sorry, I thought you said denounce Lincolnshire (xp)

now for the big one: defend lincolnshire

Was all prepared to throw Lincoln biscuits at you, then realised that they're not from Lincoln and that they're also shit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_biscuit

home of repulsive values = probably cornwall or some shit

The Lincoln is a short dough biscuit, a member of the genus, shortcake biscuits.

A+. Well more like B+ but that sounds mean.

home of repulsive values- animals b side

Misread that as "home of repulsive valves"

Anti-Semitic hysteria was stoked up by the case of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln in 1255, and in 1290, the entire Jewish community was expelled from England

All three of them

actually lancashire is p-racist as well as twee o_O

lol nakhchivian

Ah, Little Saint Hugh by the Beach Boys.

maybe it was a ploy by all three jews to get free passage back to civilization

was pretty sure that this was a thread before- we definitely had an irish version that became the 'default' irish thread for a while.

i have a personal dislike of east sussex purely because some prick once collided with me on the A27 and sent me spinning across into the central reservation then back across 2 lanes of traffic into a wall almost killing me + my gf of the time ..then drove off! worst county in england? probably not. would it make me feel better? definitely

if nobody says anything truly uplifting about lincolnshire before i leave the house in about 45 minutes' time, i am voting for it

east sussex is BEAUTIFUL and fuck FUCK if anyone votes for it, also sorry for your loss of a car

http://www.travelpostersonline.com/ekmps/shops/travelposters/images/english-railway-travel-poster-art-print.-skegness-is-so-bracing-it-s-quicker-by-rail-390-p.jpg

i don't have a city job, don't vote tory, play golf, blah blah blah

neither do I
neither do I
neither do I

I live in Surrey. It's a lot different to the way it's portrayed in the media. It isn't full of upper middle class tory wankers driving 4x4s. It's sometimes an expensive place to live, but so is anywhere else within shitting distance of London.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem

xxp if gilliam and not burton had remade alice in wonderland imo

also scunthorpe was the location of robinho's (probably) last competitive goal in english football

xxp
# Lightwater in Surrey suffered similarly because its name contains the substring twat.

^^^ I can agree with this though

tom d you have just given me lincolnshire-related nightmares, fuck

right so surrey is the worst county in england because people with too much money and no taste live there?

If we're voting on these lines I think City of London deserves a nod? Although obviously not that many people actually live there.

I live in Surrey. It's a lot different to the way it's portrayed in the media. It isn't full of upper middle class tory wankers driving 4x4s.

yeah i don't think there are more 4x4 driving tories in surrey than other more rural counties i've lived in (warwickshire for instance). but in surrey you can be at waterloo within half an hour or something crazy so it kind of wins!

Come on, Essex is irredeemably shit. And I've *been* to the supposedly "nice" bits.

Grrrrrrrrr!

(xpost) Only if you start from Woking and catch the fast train though. If you live in the south part of Surrey it's a major slog thanks mainly to Dr. Beecham.

BeechING. Unless...

Ah, sorry. He's usually refereed to as "that bastard" around here.

That bit round Dorking is really nice, that's the bit that saves Surrey from the fiery flames for me.

It's all about Leith Hill.

I have been a lurker on this board for many years and seldom posted, but really for this I make an exception. Lincolnshire. In every way Lincolnshire. Anyone who has spent more than a day there will know this. I spent four bloody years there. There is no question at all. It has to be Lincolnshire. That is all.

^^^thank you, will now vote accordingly

also booming post

I was going to say Lincolnshire or Bedfordshire, both of which I think of as featureless places that you drive through or your train speeds through when you're going up north from down south or vice-versa.

Bedfordshire has the Chilterns.

http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s236/mezxspectrum/badbrains_skegness.jpg

The answer to this is Rutland. There is nothing of interest there.

So wrong, but can't be bothered to argue. Part of it's beauty, like Lincolnshire and the less fashionable parts of Norfolk, is it's lack of people so, you know, don't bother visiting.

I'm voting None of the Above.

I've lived in Lincolnshire all my life and still voted for it.

Rutland isn't so bad, it wins over Lincolnshire simply by taking up less space.

It's just plain laziness voting for Lincolnshire. It's got fucking Lincoln cathedral in it for a start. And the wolds are some beautiful countryside.

Agree with Mr. T.Rifle on Lincolnshire. Also, as mentioned above, lots of the bits around the Wash are utterly beautiful.

I have been a lurker on this board for many years and seldom posted, but really for this I make an exception. Lincolnshire. In every way Lincolnshire. Anyone who has spent more than a day there will know this. I spent four bloody years there. There is no question at all. It has to be Lincolnshire. That is all.

― Chris Browning, Thursday, March 4, 2010 5:55 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

a+++ post

xxp

And Belton House, Tattershall Caslte, Stamford (numerous wonderful Georgian and Jacobean buildings). Numerous lovely churches. Oh, and Harlaxton Manor. The Humber bridge starts (or ends) in Lincolnshire.

Nice things in Lincolnshire:

1. the cathedral
2. Woodhall Spa and the Kinema in the woods
3. Louth

That's sort of it. I got mugged in broad daylight in the middle of the day outside the cathedral. There are countless cathedrals elsewhere in the UK which are just as nice and, coincidentally, I've never been mugged near.

I thought Lincolnshire was quite nice. For about a week. And then it dawned on me that it's basically lots of tiny places nowhere near other places with no public transport and nothing to do once you got there. I really wouldn't recommend it.

I'm not sure how any county with Blackburn and Burnley in it can be twee.

xp I think those things alone make Lincolnshire better than Merseyside.

Henry VIII described Lincolnshire as "the most God-forsaken pile in England" but it's not that bad.

I think there are counties that are good because of geographical features rather than human ones, and counties that are more vice versa. Lincs is the former imo. Donna Nook alone makes it not the worst county in the country.

I wd like to get deep into this but I'm off out, so I'll either shout incoherent bollocks at 2 in the morning or mumble remorsefully about something in the morning. Instinct is to vote for somewhere like Herts tho.

they're all great imo

This is pretty fucking true tho, and fuiud

otm.

I got mugged in broad daylight in the middle of the day outside the cathedral.

Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Is anyone going to vote for Greater London because they have occasional crimes there?

I really mean that I am sorry to hear that. It's a shitty thing to happen.

this might be useful

a lot of bnp members in lincoln given its size

Okay, another day another hangover, let's dissect this fucker.

Bedfordshire: I am basically lol the Home Counties and therefore know pretty much nothing about this, but am inclined to let it off based on John Bunyan and some hills. Thinking about it now tho it does look a serious contender for concreted over sleeperville horror. Worth a vote?

not sure if it is one of the home counties, doesn't border london and parts of it probably closer to leicester
also 'know pretty much nothing about this' is exactly the right sentiment for this poll

Berkshire: Actually this looks pretty fucking rough too. My thesis here is gonna be based on places that have become Commuterville without any scenic compensations. Going off a quick Google, Berks appears to have nothing, repeat nothing going for it. Anticipating defence based on 1 decent restaurant and some shitty punk dude having grown up there, but this looks like a proper contender to me.

Hi nakh, my take on the Home Counties is basically the whole south-east quarter of England minus East Anglia. Accept that this might be wrong but I am a parochial bigot tbh

I was born in Berkshire, but my POB got a free transfer to Oxfordshire in 1974, so fuck that place.

the shape of berkshie is rly strange, goes from london to wiltshire so there's probably some nice countryside the other end

the london end is just endless miserable exurban spillover, and it has windsor so it's probably a contender

Windsor, Slough and Eton. What's not to not like?

brown slough soup

Always assumed Windsor wd have some greenery plus history. Bleak, is it?

a large fire improved it not so long ago

City of Bristol: dunno where this list was snagged from but if Bristol counts as a county then so shd the City and County of Hull. I assume there's probably a few English cities that have this feudal county status. Never been to Bristol but cities always have something going for them imo, that's why the word has the same root as civilization.

Wd like to visit Bristol some time btw

Buckinghamshire: fuck knows. Leafy, I guess, which counts for something. I enjoy the name of the county like I enjoy the name Aylesbury and the concept of ducks. Milton Keynes is beneath a zing, obv, and nobody will ever beat out Weller's takedown anyway so why bother? Suspect this is close enough to Oxfordshire and far enough from Metroland to be pleasant.

chris marker was so taken with the local cats that he lived in macclesfield for a short time in the early 1990s

And Michael! Rother! of Neu! lived in Wilmslow!

quick google says Bucks is part of Metroland but I just got bored of saying "concrete Waste Land round London" tbh

I take Home Counties to be those touching London, so Beds doesn't quite fit & it has that textiles & nonconformity thing that runs up thru' Northants & Leics. No inclination to change my vote, Bunyan really is a minus for me.

I hadn't got my head round West Midlands before - thought Coventry was still in Warks. Feel like there's a lot of shitness there, but it's so committed to its thing that it deserves respect. METAL.

they're all great imo

But really this.

Cambridgeshire: Only been once as far as I remember. Like it. Anywhere that used to be mostly underwater is alright by me, and the Silicon Valley thing doesn't seem to have shitted it up too badly.

I've got family in Bucks and it hasn't got a whole lot going for it. Again, it does have a chunk of the Chilterns - the bit around Chequers is great, all beech woods and wind-blown hilltops. Aylesbury is a total dump though, one of those old market towns where they ripped out most of the middle of it, built a shit shopping centre and then put too small a ring-road around that. Ugly roundabouts, terrible buildings, fuck all to do. Dunno if Marillion redeem it, suspect not.

Should mention Nick Clegg's Chalfont St Giles too.

Will rep for Fish-era Marillion but don't hear a lot of Aylesbury in them tbh

'Market Square Heroes' was inspired by Aylesbury town centre iirc.

haha yeah I think you're right. But could refer to any boozy market town Friday night tbh. Works with Beverley for example.

Maybe "Three Boats Down from the Candy" is a local ref too.

You realise I'm going to have to sit and listen to fucking Marillion now, right?

I like Cambridgeshire, but feel like it's redeemed by Cambridge maybe - like it would be the worst of East Anglia otherwise - basically no coast, fenny creepiness (possibly a plus), rural psychosis (Soham).

I am so down with fenny creepiness and rural psychosis. It's like the antithesis of being Slough or something.

Maybe "Three Boats Down from the Candy" is a local ref too.

Apparently not:

'The song is about one-night stands, and in particular making love on
Brighton beach. The title refers to the girl in the story wanting a
memory of the night, however the boat next to them doesn't have a
name, the nearest one is named "The Candy" which is three boats away.'

Fish bagging one for East Sussex there.

I watched the episode of Coast where they went down the East coast last night, all down through Lincolnshire and creepy fens are A+++ with me. Forgot that the boggy marshy bits of The Wash SWALLOWED BAD KING JOHN'S TREASURE which has to be a plus.

Cheshire: Mrs V's childhood stomping ground and therefore sacrosanct in every possible way. Pleasingly schizoid in a way that only a county containing Macclesfield and the Cheshire set cd possibly be. Chester itself is a fun place that shd probably be nuked out of existence to prevent Bollyoaks from occuring in future. East German style apartments on the River Dee full of retired footballers a plus. Hills and ickle twee villages and ice cream farms and Gary Barlow also a plus.

Nick thank you for explaining the title of a song I haven't understood for 25 years.

"I like to imagine just how pissed off the residents of twee Bletchley village were when Milton Keynes appeared right next door."

a) Bletchley is actually an onamatopoeic (?) name for a horrible town on the edge of MK

B) Milton Keynes is the name of the twee little village in the middle ok and gave the "city" its name.

Cornwall: unfuckwithable with, obv. Unless you're unlucky to be born there and can't afford to buy a house in your own home town cos of weekend townie cunts.

berks and bucks both have rly pretty bits and are close to london -- multiple wins. i don't have a good feeling about bedfordshire. mainly because bedford itself is the mother of all shitholes. im sure slough (in berks) is too, but i've never been there. and beds countryside less nice than the berks countryside.

Cumbria: unfuckwithable, obv. I hear Workington's not all that.

galway's pretty great.

rural psychosis (Soham)

i guess im just hardstanning for my own enz but soham still to me means "totally nondescript dormitory village". i don't even associate it with fenland weirdiness.

noticed that every mp in cambridgeshire is a tory, except for cambridge itself (labour till 2005 and the IRAQ WAR, now lib dem).

Derbyshire: I'm gonna ignore Derby itself here because Jesus. Most of the rest of the county is beautiful as fuck tho, plus Blue John, plus FERAL MOTHERFUCKING WALLABIES

Hey, Bedford is awesome compared with Luton.

Devon: Total unreflective love for the place. One day I will live in either Tashkent or Ilfracombe.

Dorset: Total unreflective love for the place. Or Chesil Beach.

(re: Cheshire)
ice cream farms

Snugbury's FTW! No phallic hay structure this year, though - I was disappointed.

Cumbria: unfuckwithable, obv. I hear Workington's not all that.

Many of the west coast towns are grim (I lived in and around one for four years) and the people are pretty...insular. But you can't argue with that landscape. If I'd bothered to learn to drive more than a couple of months before I left the area forever, I bet I would've enjoyed it more. Might still be there. And so wouldn't be here. Etc.

Durham: Dunno, only ever passed thru it at speed. Mason & Dixon makes me wanna visit. University a bit up itself yeah?

xpost

Yeah Snugbury's is exactly where I was thinking of! Did 4 double cones in half an hour there once. Lemon Meringue ftw

East Riding of Yorkshire: some kind of minor god's own county. Big skies. Inspired sterling work by Hughes and Larkin amongst others. I am akshully here by choice, dammit.

Withernsea a bit of a shitehole, tbf

Sorry for Bletchley/(old) Milton Keynes inaccuracy, we did drive through one or the other and it looked quite nice in a tiny-bungalows-stamped-out-of-a-mould way but we were pretty navigationally addled after driving through 30 roundabouts in 20 miles so it could've been either.

I have never been to any of Cambridgeshire except Cambridge but reading Tom's Midnight Garden too many times as a kid makes me think of Ely as a magical ice-kingdom and therefore Cambs is OK by me.

The Berkshire Downs would have been a nice bit of Berkshire once, but the best bits of them are now in Oxfordshire if you ask me (bias alert) - thinking of Uffington White Horse mainly here I suppose. Have had a couple of quite pleasant days out in Reading long ago but it gets called a shithole often enough, maybe I was lucky or maybe that's local Oxford-Reading rivalry. No defence for Slough obv.

Here

Swerving east, from rich industrial shadows
And traffic all night north; swerving through fields
Too thin and thistled to be called meadows,
And now and then a harsh-named halt, that shields
Workmen at dawn; swerving to solitude
Of skies and scarecrows, haystacks, hares and pheasants,
And the widening river's slow presence,
The piled gold clouds, the shining gull-marked mud,

Gathers to the surprise of a large town:
Here domes and statues, spires and cranes cluster
Beside grain-scattered streets, barge-crowded water,
And residents from raw estates, brought down
The dead straight miles by stealing flat-faced trolleys,
Push through plate-glass swing doors to their desires -
Cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes, iced lollies,
Electric mixers, toasters, washers, driers –

A cut-price crowd, urban yet simple, dwelling
Where only salesmen and relations come
Within a terminate and fishy-smelling
Pastoral of ships up streets, the slave museum,
Tattoo-shops, consulates, grim head-scarfed wives;
And out beyond its mortgaged half-built edges
Fast-shadowed wheat-fields, running high as hedges,
Isolate villages, where removed lives

Loneliness clarifies. Here silence stands
Like heat. Here leaves unnoticed thicken,
Hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken,
Luminously-peopled air ascends;
And past the poppies bluish neutral distance
Ends the land suddenly beyond a beach
Of shapes and shingle. Here is unfenced existence:
Facing the sun, untalkative, out of reach.

I think perhaps my love of Cambridgeshire and fens in general comes from reading The House At Greene Knowe too many times as a kid.

I forgot about the Green Knowe books. I remember loving some of them and then read one which I found deeply creepy and put me off the others. Didn't realise they were in Fenland somehow.

The Berkshire Downs would have been a nice bit of Berkshire once, but the best bits of them are now in Oxfordshire if you ask me

They did give you Didcot powerstation too though, bad luck on that one.

I have lived in Reading and it doesn't seem to be more of a shithole than most other towns of it's size. Mind you everyone there says Oxford's a shithole apart from the university, so who knows what's true.

having driven through oxford cambridge reading etc last year for hols n lols and they seemed lovely, except for the traffic sitch around reading which was frankly hellish.

(xpost) And all the Tories of Henley :(

(OK, so the whole lot is Tory country, but that is its evil braying heart, at least there are some pockets of sandal-wearing Amnesty groups and fair-trade eco-collectives in the bits I'm from... that may not sound any more appealing to ILXors, I realise)

At least I can always tell when I'm nearly home because you can see Didcot for miles around.

Heh, I suspected there was a lot of local rivalry. People in Oxford think everywhere that isn't Oxford or London is an inbred provincial shithole. After a few years most of them think Oxford is a provincial shithole too and move to London, where they can hang out almost exclusively with people they vaguely knew in Oxford who've moved to London, as far as I can see.

East Sussex: fuck knows, tbh. Not really my bag, man. lol Brighton?

I hope Shirley Collins spanks yer arse with a banjo.

lol that pretty much describes me, lived in Reading for a few years, got bored with it, moved to London where I hang out almost exclusively with people I knew in Reading who also moved to London. Obv I am a disgusting savage :)

xposts

i went to east sussex (i think) in the summer. and not brighton, though i have been there. it was nice! lot of rich folk.

pockets of sandal-wearing Amnesty groups and fair-trade eco-collectives in the bits I'm from

would bomb

ie like west sussex

xpost

I think secretly I wd enjoy lots of the southeast from a quaintness plus history plus leafy perspective but I am just shamefully ignorant of The Only Important Bit of Our Country.

Plus chippy, obv.

Voted Bedfordshire. No idea why.

with the prosperous SE, it's a place i visited a lot growing up and am fond of. you didn't get as many big cars back then. well-off people, in general, seem to be better-fed, louder, and less pleasant. i blame thatcher.

Some of Hastings and that are a bit dodgy but most of the rest of East Sussex is solid, there aren't really any *terrible* places here. Lewes, Rye, Ashdown Forest, this end of the South Downs, Beachy Head etc, all these places are good imo. Unlike a lot of the SE, you can walk over vast tracts of it without having to climb over barbed wire or get chased off by landowners. Decent beer, close to London, close to France.

West Sussex is Crawley and Gatwick and shite like that, boo to them.

Essex: fuck knows, tbh. Can't totally dis anywhere with a coastline tho.

Cornwall
Cumbria
Derbyshire
Devon
Dorset

That is a no-messing good run of counties, perfectly plausible top 5. Derbyshire in particular lovely combination of gently rolling hills & bastard hills.

On Soham, yeah, my conception of Cambs-without-cambridge is quite muddled (ie wrong) - based on one headachey day in the fens, vague childhood dislike of Peterborough & evidenceless belief that much of East Anglia populated by tyre-burning, speedway-watching hicks. Should maybe spend some time fixing my made-up vision of Britain.

Galway is nice.

Essex is the sole exception to my "any county with a coastline can't be all bad" rule.

Saffron Walden looks cute?

Looks can be deceiving.

Derbyshire suffers a bit due to being home of C0mb4t 18?

This is rather out-of-date now but at least in the 80s & 90s all sorts of NF/Bl00d & H0n0ur type stuff was organised there. Actually it seems the B/N/P still have festivals there.

xposts

Gloucestershire: Cheese. Hills. Edward Motherfucking Elgar. Mason & Dixon again. Win.

have heard some pretty gruesome things about derby itself but yeah what i've seen of derbyshire is pretty spectacular

thread needs more northamptonshire talk; also dom passantino

Should maybe spend some time fixing my made-up vision of Britain.

Or you could turn it into a hilarious BBC3 sitcom...

I specifically excluded Derby, a "city" where people still hide if they see an aeroplane.

everyone there says Oxford's a shithole apart from the university, so who knows what's true.

it's true that oxford is a complete shithole

Northants making a desperate late bid to win:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7369322/Anger-as-Northamptonshire-rebranded-North-Londonshire.html

Greater London: http://cdn.epltalk.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/housemartins-london-0-hull-4.jpg

oh shit shit shit shit lolololol omg unban dom xp

Seriously considering a vote for Northants here, rubbish county full of wretched towns cowering under the shadow of great big fuck-off distribution centres and great big fuck-off motorways. My idea of misery.

Will never vote for the county that co-authored St Dominic of Passantino

RIP

oxford is obviously ... problematic ... but it's not representative of a very large, very pretty, generally quite nice county.

Greater Manchester: It think it all that, but it ain't

is it not like a year yesterday since the bannening

xp greater manc was just joshing mate

rip dom passantino 3/5/09 never forget

north londonshire is fate's way of commemorating

xp I kinda miss Manchester's misplaced self-esteem though. It really does believe it is the greatest city in the world.

Hampshire: Coastline, Forest, the stoked for madness that = Portsmouth. Hants is not pants.

i think oxford and its shire are great. nice old buildings and whatnot.

You're too kind to Hants: Gosport, Portsmouth, Southampton, Aldershot, Farnborough - all these places are rubbish and chock full of psychos with a military background

Basingstoke ain't all that either

It's the military psychos that add that frisson that turns an everyday pub crawl into an adrenaline-pumping event.

Oh god I forgot Basingstoke. urgent tactical nuclear strike called for

Also gotta love the town that gave the world Charles Dickens and DJ Martian

nickb makes a solid case for hants

Herefordshire: fuck knows, tbh. Probly something to do with scrumpy so I couldn't vote for it, obv.

Also my mother-in-law lives there x-post

Strongbow is made there - for or against?

Oh and Bully used to be at Hereford so thumbs up

I'm not so much for or against Strongbow as clinically addicted to it

Herefordshire = SAS and cider, basically.

Herefordshire's alright though, it's kind of like Worcestershire without the towns. We got the Malverns though.

herefordshire is home to many lovely ciders and scrumpies and the locals all loathe strongbow with a furious passion so A+ imo

Agree strongly - Oxfordshire pretty, packed with interesting stuff. Oxford hard to conceive of without Uni, but a good size, good green space, decent people. A bit rough at kicking out time, yes, but no worse than most English towns of similar size right? Completely & historically without Uni it'd be what, a Northampton + Cowley-as-Corby?

Wouldn't think of voting for NorthLondonshire. Even though eg Daventry is slightly depressing to think about, think of it overall as a solid mid-table county.

Didn't know about the Derby NF stuff. Ugh. Points off.

mind you i will still drink strongbow when pressed, unlike anything ending in -ers

what wd be the shittest county in terms of landscape

greater london

can't beat a good weekend on the bow. although too many places seem to serve stowford's as their piss poor generic cider of choice. i blame the -ers, personally.

rong as fuck xpost

XD nah probably like cleveland

was JOKING, god

the lol craptowns thing is kinda played out these days

had a stowford's last night, wasn't great

what wd be the shittest county in terms of landscape

― nakhchivan, Friday, March 5, 2010 2:19 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

greater london

― I spent four bloody years there (acoleuthic), Friday, March 5, 2010 2:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rong as fuck

― niminy-piminy cricket (Upt0eleven), Friday, March 5, 2010 2:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

was JOKING, god

― I spent four bloody years there (acoleuthic), Friday, March 5, 2010 2:21 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark

waht. i love london (i don't really, it's shit) but great landscape? really?

suppose london has the thames and floodplain giving way to low chalky hills etc so if you took the buildings away it wouldn't be too unpleasant

i kinda meant to type 'city of london' - i'd say london has instances of beauty here and there in the outskirts but it'd be bottom 10 for landscape, for sure...was joking about it being outright loser, when you have places like cleveland and w/e to choose from altho maybe the north york moors extend into cleveland?

cleveland's NOT EVEN IN ENGLAND

rip middlesbrough

where'd you buy that goddamn clown suit, cleveland?

don't get Stowfords round here. Strongbow's combination of unpretentiousness plus brutal efficiency is a win in my book.

If only Middlesbrough had disappeared when they offed Cleveland

oh wait hang on is cleveland not even a thing :/

Hertfordshire: dahn sahth again ergo fuck knows. Good opportunity to write to an agony aunt as Everybody, Herts tho.

maybe london IS the worst for landscape. or maybe manchester/merseyside is.

lol or maybe herts

middlesbrough is north yorks
has the parmo and the cherished memory of stewart downing and adam johnson so probably has some teeside saudade thing, also used to have a team called middlesbrough ironopolis iirc

No, Cleveland is dead like Humberside and "Boro Sex Case" chants. The 'Brough is back in North Yorks again I think

p.s. who REALLY gets roused by the Chilterns?

Keep working that Frankie Howerd shtick son

strongbow is awesome. damn i should get back to cider.

p.s. who REALLY gets roused by the Chilterns?

don't get "roused" but i can think of worse places to live.

thinking the worst landscape wd be some landlocked midlands county with lowish elevation without being apocalyptically flat and only sparse woodlands

Warwickshire?

Leicestershire doesn't seem v. interesting in landscape terms but no doubt the Hon. Mr Trifle will put us straight on that score. There are some big boring chunks of Staffordshire, it's true.

Warwickshire is pretty scenic, tho it don't roll too much

lol at y'all

http://www.mayomrt.com/clew%20bay.jpg

the chilterns and most of the area between the north downs and the sea would have been heavily wooded until at least late medieval times

the country needs some proper forests imho

xpost

yeah but we make up for the lack of that by having cities, civic amenities, an economy, that sort of thing

West Sussex is Crawley and Gatwick and shite like that, boo to them

East Sussex and West Sussex are basically the same. The differences in Sussex aren't really east-to-west, they're south-to-north.

First you've got the coast line with slightly tatty seaside towns largely full of pensioners (except Brighton), then the South Downs (grebt), then flat fields, then The Weald (more hills and loads of trees). Crawley/Gatwick is right at the top of the middle, about halfway between London and Brighton, and not really representative of Sussex at all.

you've had 90-odd years to fuck that up, have ye not

xpost

yeah you all seem so enamoured of your cities & economy it's true.

ha it's all love wd move over your way in a shot tbh

we had 90 yrs to fuck it up, but we've only really gotten down to business in the past 15 imo

Can I buy one of those islands for tuppence, or would I have to go to Greece for one of those?

NV- we don't even bully kids with english accents in school over here anymore, there literally are no downsides

this country needs boar and bears and wolves and mass graves for murder victims

yeah but we make up for the lack of that by having cities, civic amenities, an economy, that sort of thing

and these things are better than feral wolves, gambolling deer, enchanted clearings, psychotic woodcutters and talking squirrels?

islands can be privately owned, AFAIK, but don't ask me about what it takes in terms of hassle/finances. anything too small for golf courses tends to be used for sheep grazing/camping.

wd move to the Gaeltacht just to keep the kids on their toes tbh

fallow deer are so boring, more red deer plz, also elk

loltacht

not even natives get to live there anymore iirc

Golftacht?

nazi gaeilgeoirs

So then: Isle of Wight. Never been. Shit festival. Probly a bit insular and weird? That cn be a good thing as long as you're just visiting and can run away from pitchfork-wielding mutants v. fast

Leicestershire doesn't seem v. interesting in landscape terms

Yes, sure Ned T will do this job properly, but I'll rep for it - North Leicestershire's p good. The hills start to get going around there, & though it's all pretty gentle, it's def nice. It's not West Country dream-of-England stuff, or Northern rocky drama, but it's pretty enough.

Bedfordshire for me. Bedford kills it - ugly centre & rough as fuck. Nice river I guess & some appealingly crazy sects (eg Neo-Southcottians who rent out the house they're saving for Jesus to stay in on his return). But the whole county is in the life-sapped-by-London zone, and it always looks a bit flat dull, mud-and-quarries when I'm passing through. Luton. John Bunyan. Leighton Buzzard.

― woof

^^ this is my favourite post in ages. voting for cornwall tho

Wait, I haven't heard a single person say a single bad thing about Cornwall yet!

i've perhaps intimated that opinions and views may be on the whole slightly backward in those parts

Maybe he got ripped off on a cream tea one time.

How can views in Cornwall be backward when it's packed full of London-based Guardian-reading mung-beaners?

Hang on I see thomp's point now

cornish nationalism fairly crap

so weak that being patronised by the simpsons probably its crowning achievement

Am all in favour of quixotic county-based isolationism. National Liberation Army of Salop is fucking dope.

Pasties, pirates and Aphex Twin, it sounds like a great place!

Liverpool Liberation Front constantly threatening that 'next year' will be the year for revolution iirc

http://www.neilinnes.org/python/rwt003.gif

you are doing a fine job unpacking what i don't like about cornwall keep it up

salop, dir pp pasolini, involves coprophagia, mutilation and morris dancing

aphex twin sodfihfsdilfh
surfers/racists odifhslidfhlsih
cream teas spdfusl;yef;yh
'quaintness' sodiycsldiyliyh
cornish pasties lsdkvjhlkxduyvl
middle-class people who choose to be there dfihslidhvl
cream teas sdflcisydvli7isueh

tbf pirate kitsch is pretty much one of the few things i find truly hateful in this life

oh lol xp

East Sussex and West Sussex are basically the same

No way, I think of West Sussex as being a lot more conservative (Worthing, Arundel, Haywards Heath, Chichester, all those wealthy areas), East Sussex at least is a little more left-leaning. As far as the geography goes, it's got all the stuff you mention, but also great big cliffs (Seven Sisters), huge marshy areas (the Pevensey and Pett levels), all the heathland of the Ashdown Forest, crazy stuff like Camber Sands... West Sussex is a bit samey in comparison.

Kent. Pro: A Canterbury Tale, potted shrimp. Con: Dover NF Massive, the entire M2.

There have been some disgusting savages on this board but anybody who cd dis a cream tea...jeez I'm sickened

aphex twin sodfihfsdilfh
surfers/racists odifhslidfhlsih
cream teas spdfusl;yef;yh
'quaintness' sodiycsldiyliyh
cornish pasties lsdkvjhlkxduyvl
middle-class people who choose to be there dfihslidhvl
cream teas sdflcisydvli7isueh

Did you really need to translate that post into Cornish? We get the idea.

Kent is -awesome- in so many ways fwiw

"surfers/racists"

lol

Kent has Canterbury Tales AND Riddley Walker

and tunbridge wells, and maidstone, home of andy townsend

Not unblemished, then

West Yorkshire all the way - Wakefield and Huddersfield are both incessantly miserable, and Leeds has a wholly undeserved reputation as a great place to go out. It isn't.

i went to ramsgate the other week

i'm not going there again

LJ, I hope a red kite shits on your head for dissing the tranquil majesty of the Chilterns.

Family is from Devon so maybe I should not stick up for those from the wrong side of the Tamar but these are just about the best biscuits ever, and that alone is enough justification for Cornwall's existence:
http://www.sitesplus.co.uk/user_docs/82/Image/Furniss%20Gingerbread%20Retro%20Tin%20Small.jpg

Lancashire: Well there's Blackpool hoorah but eh, it's no Yorkshire.

Wakefield is thrilling, btw, it's like a National Trust monument to 1983.

Ramsgate's alright if you walk there from Broadstairs along the sea cliffs. It's the first place you can get mobile reception for about 10 miles!

x-post wait there's GINGERBREAD in Cornwall? Awesome.

Made by forced labour piskies tho so not really ethical

I liked the Isle of Wight on a visit. Bit of delapidated seaside stuff (plus some classic seaside Deco), pretty & lush countryside, ice cream, dramatic cliffs, abandoned military emplacements, shoddy theme parks, & a ton of slightly bizarre lit-history stuff - Swinburne's grave, a seafront shack where Turgenev stayed, etc. Would revisit.

Kent brilliant despite some shit commuter towns. That's how you do it, Essex, Surrey, Berkshire. <3 Broadstairs.

Kent has weird and wonderful nowhere zone of Dungeness

These Cornish Ginger Fairings need more investigation post haste.

home of england's worst filmmaker

xpost

Oh you bitch

Gotta admit the lads at the stag party I rented Blue for weren't very impressed tho.

trying to determine if any of these wacky bedfords sect are extant

sects

although that said it constitutes about 90% of my countryside experience so I probably would say that. but where else can you find a nuclear power-station on a nature reserve? a nature reserve on an island which was at one point the teen pregnancy capital of europe? historical ports with light railways going through them? innumerable oast houses?

i travelled all the way to london's fashionable east london to see a half-hour jarman film, 'imagining october'. idk why i do this, but i've seen p much every foot of film he ever shot. h8 jarman.

but where else can you find a nuclear power-station on a nature reserve?

dunwich iirc

xxp

Here are the Southcottians.

Mabel Barltrop (Octavia) was the last in this line, and thus it fell to her to receive the Divine Order that Bedford was to be the Lord's chosen centre for His Kingdom on earth.

Thus she was able to gather a group of believers who dedicated themselves to the preparation of His Kingdom. Various houses with adjoining gardens on Albany Road and Newnham Road were acquired throughout the 1920's and early 1930's which Octavia and her followers were able to prepare for His return to earth.

nobody dare vote for bedfordshire

Sry. Too late.

It always felt weirdly full of odd sects to me - walking from the station in Bedford you go past the Italian Pentecostal Church, & there's def a Spiritualist one.

And sry if I've offended any Italian Pentecostals.

Aren't the Transcendental Meditation lot in Bedfordshire somewhere too?

Was thinking of the Natural Law Party at Mentmore Towers, but they've since sold it (Eyes Wide Shut was filmed there, hey ho)

Leicestershire: I can take or leave, personally, but Leicester itself is fun, plus cheese, plus pork pies, so I wouldn't wanna vote for it or anything.

Leicester is also the home of Walkers Crisps, not sure if that makes it more or less voteworthy

walkers originals are some str8 bullshit unless we're talking worcester sauce or tomato ketchup flavour

No way, I think of West Sussex as being a lot more conservative (Worthing, Arundel, Haywards Heath, Chichester, all those wealthy areas), East Sussex at least is a little more left-leaning. As far as the geography goes, it's got all the stuff you mention, but also great big cliffs (Seven Sisters), huge marshy areas (the Pevensey and Pett levels), all the heathland of the Ashdown Forest, crazy stuff like Camber Sands... West Sussex is a bit samey in comparison.

I could go along with most of that, but I'd struggle to think of East Sussex as left-leaning. I really know central Sussex, tbh. West of Arundel and east of Pevensey are a bit of a mystery to me.

walkers tried to break ireland, imagine! home of tayto and they bring walkers to the party? fuck off lads while ye've legs ta carry ye i said to them

I'm a Leicester native & Walkers lover; but I spent every family holiday in Ireland & that is a joke that does not show fitting respect to the land of Tayto & King.

yeah and i mean king is a poor substitute but i mean no, walkers just no

lol @ how everytime we britishers talk about something non-sport related it ends up w/ crisps.

'we britishers' i'll allow, because i am an interloper in this thread tbf

If I've had too many Taytos sometimes King make a nice change. A stinking, salty palate cleanser.

irish crisp eating bitches

Srsly man Taytos are minging, gimme Walkers any day. The kids love taytos tho, think it's genetic.

cidona >>> taytos in terms of why the fuck can't they sell it here grocery items

I'd struggle to think of East Sussex as left-leaning

Oh, I only meant it relative to W.Sussex! Think it has a few more lib dems along with the tories. Then you've got pockets of craziness like Lewes and Forest Row.

We do have the gypsy-burning folk of Firle though.

thread approaching real talk status re cidona

sussexes not rly in consideration here

I was really hoping no-one was going to even notice Leicestershire and so I wouldn't be called upon to defend it's many and numerous charms (and gloss over the fox hunting and high percentage of BeeNP members). I love living here but I couldn't say it had any one thing that you wouldn't be able to find better in some other county. It's just got a lot of, for me, perfect countryside. Nothing very taxing, not too flat, very lush. Lots of nice little villages. Some decent pubs. It's not trying too hard (unlike me).

But as this...

I liked the Isle of Wight on a visit. Bit of delapidated seaside stuff (plus some classic seaside Deco), pretty & lush countryside, ice cream, dramatic cliffs, abandoned military emplacements, shoddy theme parks, & a ton of slightly bizarre lit-history stuff - Swinburne's grave, a seafront shack where Turgenev stayed, etc. Would revisit.

...is just about my definition of a perfect county, take no notice of anything I say.

A pedant writes - the shack in Ventnor replaced the house that Turgenev stayed in.

If it's a shack on the Isle of Wight you want it's this one.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/205/461897632_bfe136e968_m.jpg

Imo it's clearly Berkshire its just out and out bullshit. Yorkshire is pretty decent, I think it has it's charms which I understand may not always be uh apparent.

In previous threads.
what is the most rubbish UK county?
Lot of anti- Leicestershire feeling, but more for Lincolnshire.

The worst of all counties
Lincolnshire take it in this one too I think. Although Herts gets a good seeing to, too.

Anybody who thinks Lincs is the worst county in the country has some pretty weird values imo.

Bedfordshire is great for food shopping, thanks to the fact that there's only about four English people still living there.

Anyway, Sussex.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 19 September 2005 13:15 (4 years ago) Bookmark

looooooool public schools amirite

it is true that bedford is like 50% italian these days

More like 30% but it is amazingly diverse. Very good with bricks those Italians.

Berkshire's a bit of a funny one. Some really lovely countryside in the west and north, gorgeous villages by the Thames, especially Cookham, but then you have Bracknell and Wokingham which are really only there to make Reading look good.

I think I voted for Greater Manchester last night. Was that wrong?

its not really a "these days" things

xposts re italians

upt0eleven, you were perfectly wrong

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol u jealous

runoff?

Fuck an east coast

Anyone that voted for a county with an inch of coastline is simply the most disgusting of savages.