Don't Go There: 101 Places to Avoid in Britain and Ireland

by Julian LEstrange, Colin Plinth

Towns, cities, and counties all come in for some scathing criticism in this bad-tempered and thoroughly entertaining journey around the British Isles (or, as the Irish insist on calling them, the Hibernian Archipelago). Go from the nauseatingly Nordic Shetlands to the suspiciously Froggy Channel Islands, to the “heaving Sodom of the south coast” (Brighton). And it’s not just the places that come in for a hammering―it’s the people too! More than 1,000 quotations are collated and arranged by place, taken from a diverse range of sources, including many shockingly unreserved football chants, all for your perverse pleasure!

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Helle · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title of this book should be changed to “Don’t Read This”, in my humble opinion anyway. I have nothing against a good collection of quotes, in fact I usually quite enjoy them. This however, was an incoherent rag-tag compilation of seemingly randomly chosen quotes. There were very few that I could really relate to the location they referred to and even fewer that were actually funny in this context.

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in the sale bin at work for $2 and immediately began looking up references to the places in England and Scotland that I have visited. If you feel bad laughing along, just remember that in the UK taking the piss is not only a fun pass time, it's expected! As a Canadian, it's also amusing that many of the statements made can also be applied to the local small towns named for their UK origins.

The book makes use of URLs, which will lead to you many more jabs. One of my favourites was www.chavtowns.co.uk -- no matter where you live in the UK, I'm sure you've had a run-in.

Some highlights:

WALSALL
motto: 'Not as bad as you'd think'
"When talking to someone from the town, DO NOT on any account respond to a mention of Walsall by saying, 'What, the capital of Poland?'... As a related point, it is also considered bad form when talking to the citizens of the Polish capital, when they say 'Warsaw', to respond with 'What, the medium-sized industrial town in the English Black Country?'".
--Paul Crooke, www.walsallwonderland.co.uk

"It is possible that there are uglier towns in the world than Walsall, but if so I do not know them: and I consider myself better than averagely travelled."
--Theodore Dalrymple, "The New Criterion" September 2000

BIRMINGHAM
motto: 'Not a place to promise much'
"And unspeakable excrescence of a city... as if God had unwisely partaken the night before of a divine Vindaloo of horrific pungency, and promptly evacuated his bowels over the West Midlands the next morning."
--Poet Francis Piper, quoted by character Benjamin Trotter in "The Closed Circle" by Jonathan Coe

SLOUGH
motto: 'Not fit for humans'
"Happiness is Slough in my rear-view mirror"
-- Bumper sticker