I’ve always envied those people that come from London, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield etc… At least people will have heard of these places when they ask ‘where are you from?’ Peterborough just doesn’t cut the mustard and the generic ‘well it’s near Cambridge’ or ‘Just off the A1 80 miles north of London’ is usually met with a blank look and mild nod that says ‘i haven’t got a clue where you’re on about.’
And it’s perhaps best they haven’t because let’s be honest, who would want to visit Peterboghorror? Possibly one of thw worst-designed cities in the country, a sprawling abortion of 80’s **** architecture with facless housing estates connected with a myriad of rat run passages which become wind tunnels, litter traps and the ideal ambush point for junkies and pissed up ******. Of which this insipid little city has many.
A piss poor road system (in fact the only good thing about the city is its parkway system which lets you leave pretty quickly), bland, grey city centre whose main attractions are chip vans, pound shops, boarded up empty retail units, beggars and fat, idle ******** from the Ortons, Welland, Bretton and Hampton. You’ll see them easily – they’re the ones who wear moody Crocs in the middle of winter and has suffered some form of strange lard osmosis from eating too many chips. They’ll also have anywhere between six and a dozen kids, some brown, behind them in a rag tag band running out of control, despite mother’s best attempts to tame them by ranting swearwords at the top of her voice. Perhaps telling them they won’t get Micro Chips and a Rustlers Burger for tea might do the job…
So that’s the day dealt with. What about the nightlife? It’s not up to much – one of the key moans is that if we had a university, the student scene would invigorate the place. No it wouldn’t. It’d just give more innocent targets for the council eastate Beckham-clone in-breds or the ***** **** from Parnwell to batter senseless.
I’ve always been amazed that a barbed wire fence doesn’t go up along Midgate and Westgate to seal off the ‘passable’ part of the city from the ‘Bronx’. Avoid Liquid, O’Neills, The Brewery Tap, Yates’s, Edwards and The Solstice like a plague. If you do decide to pay a visit, firstly avoid the beggars, ***** flogging flyers for some sweaty meatmarket nightclub and junkies out for a fight near the Tesco Extra. Then get past the knuckle-headed apes of the door of most of these **** holes and you’re in – but you’ll wonder why you bothered. Try and spot the person with originality in terms fo dress sense and haircut. It ain’t happening. If you want to know what people in Peterborough will be wearing in a decade’s time, go to London now and take notes.
Fights are part and parcel of a night out and if you’re really lucky it’ll just be with gelled flat-top **** Gary who is upset because his ***** of a girlfriend looked at another man. If you’re unlucky, you’ll get the works from some ****** or an Eastern European gang for no apparent reason.
And don’t expect the thick as a donkey’s **** door staff to help you. They’re too busy making sure either:
A) those violent thungs in trainers and jeans don’t get in (ignoring the wakners in dragon print shirts and Argos shoes with big brass buckles)
B) Getting a ******* and tops and fingers with an underage Orton **** decked out in Argos’s finest gold
Make it through the night and there’s a possible kebab shop fight on the way home or the nailed on cab rank brawl. Watch as the police stay sat in their vans drinking tea. Still, if i was them, i wouldn’t bother either.
The travesty is that the one decent place we had to try and bring some culture and variety to the city (The Broadway Theatre) was burgled and torched recently. What a surprise. Perhaps Peterborough isn’t ready for this sort of enlightenment. Far better to stick to casual racism, narrow-mindedness and xenophobia, three things that this grotty city excels in.
**** me, it’s no wonder i couldn’t wait to leave. The only downside is i have to travel in each day to work. Still it gives me a great sense of smugness and superiority watching the social detrius that limps slack-jawed past my office each day on their way to the Post Office to get their dole money.
Whatever happened to social-darwinism?
