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I wrote a book called "Crap Towns". It seemed funny at the time

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by jdietrich

9 subcomments

Twenty years ago, I think there was still a sense that we were collectively laughing with each other about the dullness of small towns. We all had the same shops - Woolworths, Dixons, Our Price, BHS. We all had a leisure centre that looked like everyone else's leisure centre. Some towns were better off than others, some towns had parts that you were better off avoiding after dark, but the majority of towns belonged to the same broad spectrum of bland mediocrity.
Today, I think it's clear who would be being laughed at by whom. The fates of places have so radically diverged that we no longer have a sense of collective identity. All of the places listed in Crap Towns are now unrecognisable, for better or worse. Those familiar shops are now gone; in some places they have been replaced by artisan bakeries and pop-up boutiques, while in others they have been replaced by charity shops or nothing at all. Half the leisure centres have shut and we all know which half.
The upper middle class might have become more humourless and puritanical, but I think that's a subconscious self-defence mechanism, a manifestation of noblesse oblige without real obligation. The working class are too angry to laugh and certainly aren't willing to be laughed at. We all know that we're teetering on the brink of a populist wave, but no-one in a position of power seems willing or able to do anything about it.

by svat

5 subcomments

Loved the fact that this post didn't go where I expected it to (or at least, didn't remain there). That a book like this probably wouldn't be published today, or would be less popular today, is a point that has been made many times by many people, about many different books, TV shows, jokes, etc. But the author actually moves on from there; the observation is that even in his own opinion, the same joke isn't funny today — in fact, the equivalent thing being done today just looks “grubby”.
So it's something deeper than the usual “political correctness” debate: the question really is, what is it about the world today that trumps the hallowed British traditions of celebrating failure, of moaning, of affectionate self-mockery? Why isn't the joke funny any more, or why doesn't the mocking seem affectionate?
(He points at the malaise that exists today—it was only funny when there was some hope—but I'm not sure that's the only answer…)

by amiga386

4 subcomments

> There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years
I will, it's ChavTowns.
https://web.archive.org/web/20061013053524/http://www.chavto...
Still running as https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/
Also the owner is giving up on it as of the start of this year -- mainly because nobody visits the site; churnalists just freeboot it and they rank higher on google. https://www.ilivehere.co.uk/top-10-worst-places-to-live-in-e...

by rikroots

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> "I mean: incredibly, governments and local councils didn’t read my work and decide to mend their ways. The UK did not get better. Instead we got more than a decade of Tory austerity, Brexit, and all the accompanying neglect and bad feeling."
This bit made me laugh.
I read the original book when it came out and it was funny and - in some ways - true. I was born and bought up in the town ranked #4 in the original list (Hythe), but when I read it I was living in Hackney (#10 on the list). So I could shove the book in the faces of my friends and colleagues and say: look at me! I've moved up in the world!
The reason I laughed is because around the time of publication (2003?) I was working in the Government's Social Exclusion Unit. Prior to that I had spent time in the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit; later on I'd go on to work for the Lyons Inquiry. Part of my work included meeting people, and one thing I took away from those meetings would be how incredibly proud people could be about their neighbourhoods and towns: however deeply sunk into poverty the area was, they still cherished the place. The other thing I learned was, more often than not, those people often had good ideas about how to fix some of the issues - local solutions for local problems. All they needed was a little help and support from authorities to get those solutions off the ground.
So when the author claims that "governments" didn't read the book - some of us did. We enjoyed it, and we tried to do things to help people make their towns just a little bit less crap. Sadly it wasn't enough, but if people don't try then nothing will ever get fixed.

by SamJordison

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Author here. Noticed a lot of traffic from this post - so thanks. Thanks especially for all these thoughtful comments. Just dropping in to say I appreciate the attention - and am grateful that most posters here don't seem to mind that I'm unable to draw hard conclusions in my original article. I also like the posts here that point towards the fact that atomisation maybe has had something to do with things (as well as the hardening of inequalities and etc.) Interesting! Perhaps it was more possible to share jokes in 2003 than it is now? (The concept that jokes either punch up or punch down seems an indication of that... Feels quite recent to me. And What if the intention isn't to hit anyone, really, just to make each other laugh?)
Anyway, to respond to a couple of other things on here. I'm not really a comedian. Sorry! I do work in the publishing industry, so while I can't prove my ideas about publishers being nervous, I would hope I have a reasonable insight and instinct.

by Centigonal

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If you're about to write a diatrabe about the harms of political correctness or scold the writer on inventing a victimhood complex for themselves, please read the ending of the OP:
> Much as I’d like to, I can’t just blame the puritans if my old jokes don’t work any more. Nor can I claim that the Crap Towns books were an unqualified success
[...]
> before closing, I should admit that there is a more straightforward answer to the question of whether you can still get away with doing something like Crap Towns.
> That answer is: yes. There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years- and, honestly, when I look at it, I hate it. Partly because I feel like they’re ripping off my project, but mainly because when I read the comments on there about incels and chavs and carbuncles and brutalism it all just seems grubby. Maybe even cruel.
> I could argue that I don’t like this website because their approach and criteria are different to mine - and I hope there would be some truth in that. But I also know that I now also just react against the whole thing. It’s been done. It’s grown stale. It doesn’t fit - especially since so much has changed around it. In short, the world has moved on. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

by fallous

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If, as a humorist, you are concerned about whether you can publish your humorous book you can be certain that you live in a cursed timeline. Additionally if you think there are two kinds of jokes: those that were once funny and those that were never funny, then I suggest that your jokes were at best lazy. The human condition is pretty constant throughout the ages and those jokes that are aimed at such universal experiences continue to amuse for centuries or millennia.
Understandably the humor of the inexperienced 20-something will differ from that of the 40+ year-old. The simple and absolute world that we believe to see and understand in our younger years tends to vanish from our grasp as we become older and attain the wisdom of experience. Perhaps the author's belief that "it has been done already" reflects some of that wisdom, and just maybe those of a certain age at the time of the publishing of "Crap Towns" felt exactly the same way about his book. It seems, after all, that every generation believes that it is the first to do or discover a thing without considering that humans have been doing human things for an awfully long time and that the observation "there is nothing new under the sun" has some merit.

by ggm

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The road to Wigan Pier (1937) would be a humourless response. His main issue is the lack of acceptance of current satirical humour, "modern life is rubbish" being 22 years old.
I think he's wrong to say you couldn't publish it now. I think he is right it would be misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Bill Bryson and Paul Thoroux wrote extensively of how shit English towns can be in winter after 4pm when the shops are shut and the pub isn't open.

by magic_hamster

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The sense of self importance and overanalysis in this writeup on a silly book called "Crap Towns" is almost as hilarious as the book itself.
I still think the idea of the book is funny. There's a certain art to taking something bad and hilariously describing its terribleness. For some reason this has always made me laugh, but honestly not everyone gets it, and this has always been the case.
This kind of book can only happen in a place and a community with enough confidence and stability to handle it. Of course you can "get away" with it today, it's easier than ever to publish just about anything - but humor has changed and I don't expect it to go "viral" the way it did. Not all old jokes age well and we have all made products that no longer fit after some time.
But the author, oh boy. Dear sir, your tongue in cheek picturebook from 20 years ago is not as important as you imagine.

by firefoxd

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One thing that has been accentuated over the past few decades is the idea that you are responsible for your success. When you were poor, lacked means, or didn't have a good job, it was because the god of fortune didn't smile on you. Only the fortunate experienced success.
Now only losers are broke and live in crap towns, and winners drive expensive cars. With this idea in mind, calling it crap towns becomes an attack on the people, rather then the town itself.
This idea is thoroughly explored in Alain de Botton's "Status Anxiety"

by thomassmith65

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The author writes well. Within a few paragraphs the reader entirely forgets that "I couldn't publish Crap Towns today" is a hypothetical.

by dave333

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The Connections series by James Burke from around the same time posited that politics is irrelevant and progress is mostly due to science. The consumer society of today is much better than when Crap Towns was written although improvement is not uniform. But even the least improved towns are better now than they were due to all the regional, national, and international improvements in services.

by Yossarrian22

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The problem is those towns weren’t crap within living memory when the books were written. Now anyone who remembers otherwise is close to dead

by ChrisMarshallNY

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I remember a Web site, in the early oughts, called “sheppeyscum.com”. That URL now redirects to one that makes Sheppey look good.
The original one did not.
It was all about insulting the Isle of Sheppey (Western UK). I think an ex-Shep wrote it.
Looks like all traces are gone. I understand that death threats were involved.

by smelendez

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Great article.
This kind of humor still exists and I think it’s still most popular with young people. I followed an Instagram account in Chicago that mocks local bars and the people who go to them, but they’re all bars for people in their 20s, so I’ve rarely heard of them and don’t fully get the descriptions. There’s also that trend of “cynical maps” (Google it) of city neighborhoods, country regions, etc that peaked a few years ago and still circulates.
I don’t see this selling as a book now, but I also don’t see humorous coffee table books in general as a category the way they were 25 years ago?

by nickdothutton

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Consider the Vector, not just the Scalar. The direction, the trajectory, of these places.

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by zeroq

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A fellow Elbonian made a book [1] depicting the ugliest places in our town.
Despite the tongue-in-a-cheek mood it's a great piece of nostalgia trip spiced with some interesting local history lessons.
He also have an automotive youtube channel dedicated to popular old cars and he loves to film them in these obscure and sordid locations mentioned in the book.
EDIT: fun note - when MS released their first digital encyclopedia in Elbonia, somewhere in mid 90's, the Elbonia entry, apart from having accurate information about the country and up to date statistics had an illustration image subtitled "Elbonians in front of typical dwelling" depicting something like this: https://strojeludowe.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/1.3-600x...
[1] https://paskudnik.com/strona-glowna/6--ebook-paskudnik-warsz...

by physicsguy

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I remember laughing at this, my hometown was included it’s worth saying. I suspect the purchasers were largely people who lived in one of the ‘crap towns’
I’m not sure how anyone could have read it and not understood it was a joke. At the same time, I do think that he’s right that it wouldn’t get published today, not because the content wasn’t true, but people are much more quick to take offense over things like this.

by PaulRobinson

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It's not about identity politics. It's not about self-deprecation. It's not even about if the material is particularly funny or not.
It's whether you're punching up or punching down.
If the purpose of Crap Towns is to punch up, speak to power, to point out the failures of Thatcherism, decreased social mobility through a perptuation of failing center-right politics thanks to an overly-powerful media and political class that is divorced from reality, the absurd dominance of PPE graduates within policy making, and on, and on, on... well, it's great satire.
If it's just to point at working class people and go "haha, their streets are dirty and they eat bad food", well... you're punching down, and it's rare that can work as comedy. It's just mean bullying.
So yes, you can write Crap Towns today, but it lands better if you draw the line from Thatcher through Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer, and their acolytes - the PPE mafia on both sides of the House, and point out how their crappy politics has caused all this, not their victims.

by bcraven

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I recently started a subscription to https://www.the-fence.com/ as set out in the opening to this piece and it's truly a lovely object. Highly recommend.

by OliC

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There is a fairly popular tiktok account doing much the same thing. Travelling from town to town to point out the worst parts of them. Although I'll admit it sometimes feels more depressing than funny.

by Sparkyte

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I think this is awesome! Should be done more often, gives people perspectives on areas they wouldn't otherwise know or think about.

by econ

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Without a definition of a shit town I can't make much sense of what he wrote here. I'm tempted to define it myself but I won't fall for the trap.

by protocolture

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Be harder to identify the non crap towns tbh.

by Tourniquet

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My home town featured (33rd!). We considered it vindication!

by klooney

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> And when hope was actually something people might consider voting for?
A link to an American politician, of course.

by bryanrasmussen

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In my experience there are only a few cities in the U.S that literate people are proud enough to live in, that they would be insulted that you put that into your crap town book.
Thus I wonder what demographic that at one time would have bought this book is not going to be buying this book now.

by mmaunder

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Great article with links to others, like this one:
https://arena.org.au/stay-in-your-lane-the-oxymoron-of-authe...
With quotes (re cultural appropriation) like “the ultimate endpoint of keeping our mitts off experience that doesn’t belong to us is that there is no fiction… All that’s left is memoir”
We’ve been suffering under the yoke of the intellectualization of deliberalization, censorship and oppression of ideas via our leading thinkers, institutions and platforms who have been acting out of fear. Fear of being strung up on the town square and fear that not signaling support for what has been happening signals disapproval.
What I find infuriating is that our youth have been driving this conformist, enforcement, rule making and rule following mentality and trend. Our youth should be questioning the rules, not forming up as a conformist jack booted militia and persecuting those who don’t follow the rules. History has shown that the latter ends in tears.
We saw this in Germany in the 30s, in China in the 60s and 70s where the red guards in the cultural revolution were mostly teens, under the Khmer Rouge in the 70s where kids were police, and with the Young Pioneers and Komsomol in the early and mid 20th century Soviet Union.
When youth stop questioning and start enforcing, it often marks the end of a healthy society and the beginning of something much darker.

by scythe

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>One age misunderstands another; and a petty age misunderstands all the others in its own ugly way.
I couldn't help but keep thinking about this Wittgenstein quote as I read this. I find it harder to say exactly why. Obviously, we felt differently in the past. Not my past, of course: I was a child, barely able to integrate by parts or fold a shirt correctly.
There is another possibility. The usual complaint is that oversensitivity has constrained humor. The usual retort is that what we did before was harmful and we're better off not doing it. But the problem with logical-seeming dilemmas is that existential propositions can only seem logical. The world, unlike logic, is malleable. Perhaps the jokes really are worse today than they were in the past?
Twenty years ago, our crap towns were something we experienced with the other townsfolk first and foremost, and only to a lesser degree did we bear the weight of the outside world's eyes upon us. Today it is not like this. Communication across great distances has gone from difficult to convenient to pervasive and unavoidable.
Locality has frayed in more domains than the spatial. Recently /r/MedicalPhysics had a spat with /r/sysadmin about hospital IT policies. Such a civil war would have been unthinkable in the 2000s. Humans used to spend much more time socializing with their friends or at least comrades-in-something than with almost complete strangers. Our egos are exposed to the elements in a new and phase-changing way.
I think that the social fabric has already begun to fight this trend from the bottom up. At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, Discord has made non-discoverability its greatest feature. The gladiatorial aspect of modern discourse has never sat well with me. I don't want to have a conversation for the audience. But here I am. Please clap.

by thinkingemote

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The question is: "what are we laughing at now that in 20 years we won't think is funny?"
---
I have hope that we might see that laughing at our neighbours for their political views might be seen as inappropriate.

by surfingdino

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If you can't be bothered reading a book, or if you find it funny and want more, https://loudribs.com/product-category/postcard/ has a "Rubbish Seaside Postcard" series.

by yapyap

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> You wouldn’t get away with it now
They almost always say that and it’s almost never true.

by uwagar

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the book author says "There’s a website (I won’t link to it) that has kept on running a survey of the worst places in the UK for years and years- and, honestly, when I look at it, I hate it. Partly because I feel like they’re ripping off my project"
this is why we should cherish the [indie] web. we can still almost publish anything in incredible detail, keep it alive for a long time and not worry about being canceled.
plus i have low opinion of people that wont share a link they know is relevant to the topic.

by micromacrofoot

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a comedians biggest fear is that one day everyone starts taking them seriously

by petesergeant

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> but mainly because when I read the comments on there about incels and chavs and carbuncles and brutalism it all just seems grubby. Maybe even cruel.
There we go. People shift from being the out-group to being more sympathetic and unfortunate, and humour that targeted them moves into being punching down. I was shocked at how less funny Bill Hicks feels 20 years on, because now it just sounds like he's being an asshole about people who are struggling.

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by JumpCrisscross

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Yes, it’s a problem that something like that is insulting to publish.

by addicted

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So it’s not that it won’t be published today.
It just won’t be as popular today. And would, ironically, be crapped on by other people, which is what the author is unhappy about.
Thats what the author means, and represents the entirety of the “Oh I am so oppressed because I can’t say shitty unfunny jokes because other people will make shitty unfunny jokes about me in response” genre of argument.
The difference between then and now is that the people in the “crap towns” have the opportunity to call the author out.

by betelgeuse6

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Maybe now the crappiest places have something common that should not be mentioned.

by aaron695

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[dead]

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by refulgentis

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I read some guy complaining some podcast complained about his book and elevate it into some weird organized political movement that he's already declared is dead, and he's happy those kind of rancid speech-haters are gone...punchline... they're the illiberals!
Okay then!
Be honest with yourself, O Reader!
Are you sure he's not writing a satire of the same piece you've seen written every year since 1990, just with a shifting name for it?
He is a comedian after all...
Are you sure he's serious?