Crap Towns

`I wish I could think of just one thing I could tell you about Hull, oh yes…it’s very nice and flat for cycling.’ Philip Larkin

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Crap Towns is a hilarious guide to the 50 worst towns in Britain. From inner city poverty to self-satisfied middle England, from the dull and the lifeless to the ugly and the depressing, no concrete monstrosity or phoney heritage centre will be left untouched. For the first time Crap Towns will prove that Britain isn’t just the place of warm beer, cosy bed and breakfasts and amiable old gits that some travel books would have us believe. With burnt out cars, shell suits, cheap shoe shops and housing estates patrolled by rabid dogs and feral kids, Britain can be every bit as challenging a destination as the places gap year students and `serious’ travellers’ usually go for their poverty and misery kick.

Crap Towns started life on the website of The Idler magazine when readers were asked to write short pieces on awful places they knew and despised. The idea captured imaginations throughout the Internet community, receiving countless word-of-mouth recommendations from websites, chat rooms and weblogs. It is now a regular feature of The Idler and consists of statistics, anecdotes, history and other bits of info sent in by readers. Crap Towns will select the top 50 Crap Towns in Britain and reveal them in all of their repulsive and deluded glory.

From London via Portsmouth (where there has been a `kebab war’) Morecambe (The seaside town they forgot to close down) Cumbernauld, Newport and Lincoln – the underbelly of Britain is about to be scratched.