Portsmouth: anything to add to this list?

[scotty]

A howl of anguish from the sickipedia forum. I think it covers most things, but can you add any items to the trolley?

 

Why Portsmouth is a sh*thole. A list.

 

The feral packs of kids, the endless bass of the exhausts, the no go area that is Guildhall Walk, the eastern European thugs trading blows, insults and drug dealerships with the locals, the almost total absence of culture (Hornpipe Cinema, where are you when we need you), the North End Wetherspoons, the asbos, the dilapidation of Fratton Park where millionaire footballers drive away from the gloom to their pads in the countryside with the last few hard-earned tenners of the locals burning holes in their armani trousers, the fading splendour of the Southsea villas now carved up into bedsits for ‘transient gentlemen’ and behaviourly-challenged young people, the tiny numbers of beggars (like babies in an orphanage they soon learnt the futility of crying for help), the sewage pumping station that is below sea level, the historic dockyard with its head stuck up its historic arse, gunwharf quays, the students who quickly learn the value of avoiding eye contact, the Somerstown skyline in the day’s dying light, the murders, the crammed urban streets packed with four-wheel drives, the hatchet-faced young women, the horrified old men working in the newsagents, the cheap housing being built on every square millimetre of greenery, the football club chairman who thinks he’s Caesar, Fred sodding Dineneage, the endless rows of terraced houses, the diet of lager and kebabs, the shaved heads, the baseball caps, the stripey tops, the beerbellies, the knuckles, the sovereign rings, the white trainers, Pompey dots, the fights over cabs, the nervous-looking coppers, the sense of dread on every street corner, the tense queues in the One Stops, the drives to the country to escape only to find Leigh Park and Wecock Farm, the pounding of the waves that will one day drown the place, the pleading hope inside that somewhere in the town there are people who don’t find mindless violence funny, Paulsgrove, the muggings, the vandalism, the bi-annual footie-related misplaced patriotism fest that always, always turns into riots, the hatred of Southampton, the hatred of everyone else, the bastardised cockney accent, the kids swigging from lager cans, the tracksuits, the red faces, the baffled old people thinking death might not be quite so bad after all, the smell of dogs, the dog's sh*t, the look you get when buying a broadsheet newspaper and a bottle of wine that doesn’t come in a two-litre bottle, the stabbings, the slashings, the shouting, the racism, the crappy jobs, the grey factories, the drizzle, that f*cking pointless £20 million tower they built 100 yards away from one of the most-deprived wards in Britain, the traffic lights that favour a non-existent flow of traffic, the empty libraries, the jam-packed bookies, Fratton Wetherspoons, the tailgating, those poor, brave cyclists, the white vans, the tatoos, the sailors, the endless drivel about regeneration (note to council: a tower block with a few bits of plastic stuck on it is still a tower block), the refusal to do any recycling, that strange orange glow you get in the evenings, the cctv, the concrete, the neighbours that won’t even make eye contact with you, the ordinary people looking to move to Fareham, Cosham Wetherspoons, the buses full of pikeys, Port Solent, Time and Envy, South Parade Pier, the sea, the sea…

 

I'll kick off with the "Out Of City" directions on every road sign. They say it all to me.

Edited 9 November, 2014 by scotty

[badgerx16]

Millionaire footballers ?

[mack rill]

wipe your feet on the way out!

oh sorry thats an SO postcode number,

[farawaysaint]

The author really hates Wetherspoons.

[scotty]

The author really hates Wetherspoons.

 

To my eternal shame, I have the wetherspoons pubfinder app on my phone.

[Danbert]

The total lack of humility, decency or self-knowledge. Someone should put up a huge Portsmouth-encompassing mirror so they can all look themselves in the face and learn a few home truths.

[Turkish]

One of the things i find odd about Portsmouth people is that they are proud that they are an island town with a dense population. Like it's in some way a good thing that they are crammed in like sardines into a small crappy town. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it's the highest population density outside of London.

[farawaysaint]

One of the things i find odd about Portsmouth people is that they are proud that they are an island town with a dense population. Like it's in some way a good thing that they are crammed in like sardines into a small crappy town. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that it's the highest population density outside of London.

 

FYI #20 per this list (and the first outside London). To be fair Southampton are the next outside London after Portsmouth.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_districts_by_population_density

 

For the actual cities rather than districts, this list has Portsmouth above London. (Dec '13).

 

https://thegeographist.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/100-largest-cities-by-population-density-united-kingdom/

Edited 10 November, 2014 by farawaysaint