Hi all

My posts on here have been extremely limited so far and comes down to one simple fact. I am a lazy git.

I find it much easier to talk into some method of audio recording device than to sit and type out my random meanderings onto a computer.But as I think Simply Read is such a fine addition to the Simply Syndicated site, I was inspired to come up with a more regular contribution.

Now deciding what I could write about was not easy, in fact it took some guidance from my eminently brilliant co host to get me to this point.

Some of you may know that I do a rather massive amount of driving in my job and over the years have been to countless places. My little corner of simply read is going to be experiences, impressions, recollections and as I said before meanderings about my travels. The places, the people and er………… the local takeaway amenities?

I am sure at some points it will enter rant territory and much will be with my tongue firmly set in cheek. There may well also be some bashing of local customs, enforcing of stereotypes but on the flip side there will be some that I dispute. I hope that in doing this I get across to those not UK based some of the vast differences here between places so geographically close on such a small island.

There will be little or no research, no accurate historical facts, just whatever comes out of my head. So er………..sorry in advance.

So to kick it off I thought that where better to start than the place I am from, that being Hertfordshire, more specifically a town called Stevenage. Now I did not live here but it is a place that was often visited and is rather unique I think.

As I said no facts here, but if I wanted to hazard a guess as to the location of the first UK stronghold from where the ‘chavs’ were born, bred, and cultivated to infect the rest of the country, Stevenage is my pick.

I observed years ago, long before the ‘chav’ term had been coined that a vast number of the younger generation in this town were becoming a kind of tribe. We used to call them ‘skippies’. These were the days of shell suits and white trainers with huge tongues flapping against shins like cricket pads.
The early examples of many gold chains from Elizabeth Duke at Argos and multiple sovereign rings that doubled up as knuckle dusters. And most importantly the propensity to modify heavily the bodywork and exhaust pipe diameters of small engined cars originally designed for Dorris to drive to the post office to collect the pension in. You know, the kind of car that has the cubic cm boot (sorry trunk) size perfect for one of those tartan cloth clad pull along shopping cart thingymijigs.

Stevenage has an old and new town, the new town is similar to Milton Keynes in that it is a kind of grid of dual carriage-ways surrounding every populated part of the town. At the center was a hideous orange plastic clad building called the Gordon Craig theatre. This eyesore marks the true center of Stevenage (although to be fair I think it has had a facelift now). So to make this area even more attractive what they laughably called a ‘leisure park’ was created just opposite.

Now what this area brought to the town was a multiplex cinema, a weird place full of quite bad arcade machine and toy machines with a random bar in the middle called Sams. Several restaurants (a Mcdonalds of course) but most importantly the twin nightclubs of ‘Pulse’ and ‘Vogue’.
These clubs were the concrete boots on the snitch that was this ‘leisure park’. Oh the people you would get in that place! (and the resulting fights and police raids)

This also lead to the vast car parking area becoming what was a low rent version of a meet up from the fast and furious. I say low rent, I mean more like whats left in the petty cash drawer of the houses of parliament’s expenses department.

Corsers, novas, fiestas and of course the leaders of the pack who had Renault 5′s or if God like, they had a VW golf GTI (at least 5 yrs old and as a named driver on mums insurance). They would see who can get the most speed up………..before the next speed bump, then trickle over the road swelling painfully slowly so as not to damage the cheap aftermarket side skirts that were held to the lowered shitmobiles by sticky tape and chewing gum.

Now if in the UK you will be reading this thinking ‘but thats like where I live’ and you could be right. But I am convinced that this place is the blueprint for the rest of the country. A soulless concrete expanse where the only fun to be had is racing on the big double roads and mugging old people in the inevitable 50,000 underpasses created as a result of so many perilously fast moving transport channels.

So if you are ever in north Hertfordshire and find yourself in Stevenage, remember what I have said, thank what ever deity/object/spaghetti monster you believe in for the fast roads…. AND PUT YER BLOODY FOOT DOWN.

So there you have it, my first attempt. Please post a comment and let me know what you thought and where I can improve.

-Boz-