I just got back from Rotherham (where I work now).
Now I don't mean to be mean and if you live in Rotherham or pehaps have loved ones or family in Rotherham then please feel free to exempt them from this but....
What a fucking shithole.
When I first got here 18 months ago, the country was still enjoying the easy life and using five pound notes wipe its arse. Then the unthinkable happened and a bunch of chinless nobheads lost all our money and fucked everything up.
Now you could be mistaken for thinking that I'm going to say how Rotherham, being a small town, rapidly went down hill with stores closing left and right, however, well ok to a certain extent that did happen but for the most part, Rotherham was pretty much a shithole to start with. The recession just made it more of a shithole.
Don't get me wrong. If you want a mobile phone or some ropey old gold then you're sorted.
Why not arrange a nice shopping weekend for you and your loved one in Rotherham.
Just remember to bring a second pair of shoes because at some point you will tread in some dog shit.
Funny story.
I have to walk down a small flight of concrete steps to get to the main road and one day a dog (I assume it was a dog) had done the biggest shit in the world on the top step. It was so big you quite literally had to physically plan a route to walk around it.
That shit stayed there for ages. Not days, not weeks but at least 2 months. It got to the point where the frost came and froze it, rain came and washed it (but not away - it was too big for that) and I'm not sure but i think the thing started to get local prominance. I don't live in Rotherham, but I'm sure they have a local Gazette and I'm fairly sure that in that paper there was a section dedicated to the pile. "MESS WATCH" or some such.
I was on site a couple of months later when I recieved a text that just said "The shit has gone" and sure enough the man from the council (There must be only one if it took him that long to turn up) had turned up and done something about it.
I think what I should be pointing out is that this is by no means a one-off event.
I guess that transpires to the larger view that even dogs think that Rotherham is a shithole.
Actually a shit hole.
I used to make the joke that Rotherham was Sheffields biggest car-park.
the reality seems to be much much worse than that.
Until next time...