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

by Dan Kieran, Sam Jordison

Consummately contentious and fabulously funny, The Idler Book of Crap Towns is the real rough guide to where not to go in Britain. The authors name and shame the 50 worst towns on the island, revealing them in all their hideous glory. From the dull and lifeless to the ugly and depressing, no concrete monstrosity or phony heritage center has gone unscathed. Woking, Bognor Regis, Cleator Moor, Crouch End, Slough—your time is up.

Genres: Nonfiction, Humor, Travel, Photography

154 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2003

About the author

Dan Kieran is Deputy Editor of The Idler, a bi-yearly British magazine. He is a writer, editor, and CEO and co-founder of the crowd-funding publishing platform Unbound.

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

The joke here is that just about everyone's town or nearest city is included in this book. In fact, I think the book is of the 50 most populous cities in the UK. Its very funny and an ideal gift for anyone British - the first thing they will do is thumb through to find out if their town is in it. Then watch their face as either they are amused or get all defensive when reading the criticism of their home town.

[Jasper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Randomly picked a load of towns and chose to slag them off based on hearsay and common folklore. However, it is funny to read and gives a quaint pastiche of the towns mentioned. The Brighton entry is clearly based upon somebody who is trying to formulate an opinion about a town when they have never actually lived in it. Interesting.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

not crap enough

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an American, I can only take their word for it. The sarcastic essays are frequently funny. The photos are convincingly soul-destroying. I think Hull doesn’t sound too bad, actually.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can almost hear Morrissey singing "Everyday Is Like Sunday" as you flick through this book. Though this guide isn't quite as shallow and dismissive as the title suggests. There is plenty of funny and insightful, and more importantly honest comments, thoughts and opinions about many places scattered throughout much of mainland UK. There is a wide selection of incriminating photos to back up the theories and beliefs too. There are also a whole number of delightful names like South Woodham Ferrers and Bexhill On Sea. This book veers between tongue in cheek and eye on the ball accuracy. It proves that more often than not humour is a powerful device in which to address often serious issues about otherwise genuinely grim circumstances, basically if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

The book is filled some really clever and funny comments, that often reads like a "Daily Mail" / "Viz" mash up, like, “I wanted to make a documentary about it for Granada, but John Carpenter bought the rights and remade it as “Escape From New York” are someone’s thoughts on Skelmersdale. or “Yate shopping centre is rumoured to have bannered itself ‘Yate is great’, but is in truth a Stalinist concrete shopping lubyanka – quadrant of cold alleys perfectly designed to trap and funnel the wind.”

Even some of the more upmarket and desireable location come in for a hammering, “At first glance Oxford appears to be the ideal English city. It’s the beautiful home to one of the world’s most distinguished universities, with a thriving centre and lush green spaces draped over a winding river. Travel further afield though and you realise that this harmony is achieved thanks to the ghettoization of large sections of the community, as the working classes are forced to live miles from the town in some of Europe’s largest-and most notorious-housing estates.”

The editors of this guide, at least make some attempt at balance, giving the opportunity for various people to give a differing opinion, almost all positive flipsides come from the councillors, tourist office workers and politicians who have a vested, commercial interest in being seen to do so. This book is also peppered with some light hearted trivia, though I'm a bit dubious with the accuracy of some of it, for example, contrary to what it says here, the first train related fatality did not occur in Basingstoke, but this is a minor gripe and this is actually a really enjoyable guide, which is well worth the read and will raise plenty of laughs.

[Mad Medico · Rating 2 out of 5]

A relic of the chav-bashing, benefits scroungers, nuclear anxiety era of the 2000s - a similar book published today would read like Mein Kampf, this is a bit more sedate if still basically repellent. A lot of the photography is quite good, with the washed out black-and-white adding to the dour and depressing aura captured in most of them. There are some great individual lines and entries (check Liverpool, Oxford, Aldeburgh and Leiston) but it gets repetitive and samey - turns out it can be hard to distinguish one hollowed out, neoliberalism-ridden settlement from another, especially when the same folk devils (tracksuit-wearing junkies and spoilt children) are wheeled out in repeated attempts on the part of the contributors to be clever. Also, what possible reason could merit Tintern’s inclusion, and who came up with a patently absurd population of 30,000?!

[Oliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Crap Towns’ details 50 places in the UK with peoples sent-in negative reviews of said places. This book is quite funny and would probably be even more so to someone living/ who has lived in the UK

[John Naylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel I read this 15 years too late. The references haven't aged well and some of these towns will be better while others not in the list will be worse.

The actual bad reviews would have earned this one star. The responses to them by councillors, tourist officers and MPs earned it another star.

[Derek Baldwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very funny book although Faversham is inexplicably omitted.

[MissJessie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great waste of money. Perhaps when it was published 10 yrs ago it would have been more pertinent, but now, so many years on, not so much.