Nothing in the world can prepare you for Halifax, West Yorkshire!

Nothing in the world can prepare you for Halifax! The worst hole in the whole world – my girlfriend who comes from Bristol is often gobsmacked and she only sees it on a weekend when the yokels are dressed up!

During the weekdays it is even worse. Those of you from big towns and cities, think of the worst estate you know – Gipton and Halton Moor in Leeds spring to my mind – if the ne’er-do-wells loitering around the Happy Shopper there are tipped in to the town centre and you’ll be half there.

Even the pensioners are awful, trying to use the main post office on a lunchtime you are immersed into an ammonia stinking, p*ss world, the mothers (13 – 16) push their Burberry buggies round, the baby girls ears already pierced and ready for the hoop earrings she’ll get for her 2nd birthday.

Daytime hangouts are near the market close to the cheap shoe shops, Greggs and JJB Sports.

At night the town is a frightening place, anyone over 40 is in a huge minority. The lovely ladies are all identically dressed with more flesh on show than on an Ibiza beach and one thought strikes you: – Some of the girls have wonderful legs, tight lithe bodies and L’Oreal hair but they’re all ugly, every last one of them. (Did anyone see the daughter on C4’s Wife Swap broadcast 20th July? – fine example). Then of course there’s more than a fair smattering of the Size 18s in Size 12 clothes. Mind you it’s not like the blokes are a catch either, there’s definitely a narrowing of the gene pool around here and the almost palpable level of potential violence would be enough for the American President to send the troops in.

Most of the shops around George Sq. closed years ago and turned into bars and then the council (who granted permission) complain that there’s too much of a drinking culture in the town. The lovely ladies are not chatted up in this town, they’re carried legless from the nightclubs and shagged in an alleyway. A truly awful town.

Places to observe / avoid: Tramshed; any bar in George Sq; WC’s (used to be a public loo – ironic?);Coliseum;Yates; Jumping (Fighting) Jaks (replaced the last cultural outpost in town, the cinema);various curry houses around Lord Street after 2 a.m.; the taxi office on Horton St.