The Worst Things in Basingstoke, Hampshire*

The entirely missable and worth mentioning because of it

You can tell us more about Basingstoke.

• Matthew Lawrenson, the geeky twat
• The 1970's extension area of South Ham. This estate might not be KNOOWWN to the average STOKIE, yet it is well hidden in the depths of south ham, backing onto the buckskin. Cleaver, chivers and brewers closes are all SO downtrodden. From the white graffiti on the houses, to the boarded up winda's, over to the disasterous weeds growing out the TIRED paving, it strikes one as a DIMINISHED AREA! The bridge houses and alleys act as a perfect ratrun for the heroin and crack dealers, whilst the vandalised hidden garage blocks act as the perfect place for the already 13 yr old mums to get bent over for a QUICKIE! There are nooooo front gardens for these desolate VILE PITS and the bungalows are LITERALLY the size of a small lounge! A tainted local called 'Janie' had this to say 'I ATE dis area, da faaackin kids run dis estate innit. Day corl it tha baybee faktry! I ad first shag at 11. Kingfisher OUZIN association need to bulldoze quick, I need a fag'.
• People who moan. About everything. And do nothing about it. If you're too lazy, thick or bigoted to do anything to improve your town, you don't deserve to live somewhere nice. Its probably because of people like you (oh its all crap and none of its my fault/responsibility) that you have so much to moan about. Get a grip or move and be miserable somewhere else.
• The Road From Newbury / Reading (delete as applicable)
• Worst problems - Horrible little kids who think they are the dogs do das' at 8! Swearing at Cinema Staff or just being stupid - where do their parents think they are! - OR kids who think smoking dope in public view of everyone is cool - its moronic! But I suppose they'll only realise this when they grow up - on benefits, no education, criminal record and a few pastings ! (There are large parts of this town who have had enough of the yob culture and given the chance im sure alot of them would dish out a view slaps!!)
• The George being turned into a pizza place - NOOOOOOO!
• The horrible housng estates that have "affordable housing" which attract yobby townies and more crime.
• town center festival place
• Basingstoke!
• drunken fools being aggro
• the fact that the town centre is not in the centre of b'stoke so on a friday saturday night it takes till the like 6 in the morning to actually get home.
• Loads of nice wide pavements, verges, and underpasses ankle-deep in other people's dog's by-products! And those who do obey the bye-law and scoop then chuck the bags under the nearest hedge .... go figure!
• not enough room to put it all down.
• This place is dire for anyone that wants a little bit of fun/exitment, living here makes you feel like your in some kind of a 'just make it nice' town construction experiment gone out of control. It really deserves the Boringstoke nick.
• Some of the estates are becoming run-down and unpleasant. Ever younger children are becoming more and more aggressive. And, I'm sorry that this sounds like I'm picking on the "Yoof cultcha" - but kids - your language skills are really, really poor. Can't you string a sentence together without every other word being 'F'? (girls as well as blokes) That's sad because as you're also among the best things of Basingstoke you're really letting yourselves down.
• having nothing to do-basingstoke in 1982 only had 1 cinema and a swimming pool......not very good-i have heard it has improved a bit but a bit late for kids of my generation
• Basigstoke Has the worst Number of bent Polize Offices in the Hole of England and thay allow children to be attacked and turn the other way just becouse thay are not from basingstoke and the way peaple in basingstoke think that thay are above the law just becouse thay are from basingstoke!! Teachers who turn there backs on children who are being picked on in such away that there lifes are made hell and even end up in Hospital all becouse the teachers will not stop the so called basingstoke children from picking on children who do not fit in, for fear of losing the jobs. Teachers in alot of schools in basingstoke will not tell children of who are off a darker coulor skin becouse thay do not want to end up with a race'ist problem on ther records so them children can basicly do as thay please even to the point of knifing other children, and teachers just turning the backs on it! I know of at leat 3 times when this has happoned to other familys and the victoms find them selfs being told off and kicked out of school so that thay can not tell the truth about what has happend the worst school for this is just over the brige from safeways just befor the park next to the caravan park!!
• The thing that is most wrong whith everywhere in the south the fucking people the townies want to be pikies with manculian accents but fall short after they relize there parents are wealthy middle class dentists and bank managerswhich is just fucking pathetic and as for the children of slipknot as i like to call them well there just social outcasts who want to be different but acctually fall into a catorgory of about half a million young delicuant teenagers who all seem to want to die yet there life is acctually priddy good which is maybe why they need to attention seek i say fuck all of them drop a nepal bomb over the high street 1 day let it be done with it
• Virtual 'rip off no exchanges' Games
• theres nothing in basingstoke
• To many townies watch out for the chineham massive they hang out in tescos, and also the cru out side burger king. big headed idiots like pnut who thinks he is the best in the park cos he can clear the jump box
• Matthew (Mong) Watson. He's a dried up, low down, good for nothing waste of space. He also looks like Jim from The Royle Family (only Jim's more intelligent & charismatic!)
• Price, pubs, people. Very depressing atmosphere everywhere.
• its rubbish and covered in townies
• Every time I visit Basingstoke I see lots of teenage mothers pushing prams and my heart sinks. Why would anyone want to live there, yet alone raise a family?
• The london overspill - They think that they are from Basingstoke but all put on fake London accents whenever you mention it.
• Some Townies will give you grief, but then don't they all?
• Homogenous. Horrendous teenagers everywhere. Cockney gone wrong accents, I started to catch one but made a real effort to lose it again. Town on a Saturday (night and day). Lots and lots of things I cannot be bothered to think of. The lack of interesting or exciting shops.
• Expensive housing, lack of clubs, violence/attitude of some of the town's youth, apathy to most things cultured (art/live music especially), the sculptures (trying to be artistic but alas), no University/student population. Not enough rock/pop artists at the Anvil. The Anvil doesnt seem to cater for the youth of the town. The only rock artists that have performed there that I can recall over the past 6 or 7 years - The Fall (they were awful), Roachford (they were excellent), Julian Cope (very good and amusing), Julia Fordham (yeah she was ok), D:ream (well, one-hit wonder really), and a few local band nights (one a year since 1996). So, if anyone from the Anvil is reading this, PLEASE put more on for the town's youth, and don't just put on classical stuff.
• NOWHERE TO GO WHATEVER AGE GROUP YOU ARE, UNLESS IT'S OUTSIDE OF TADLEY. NEAREST TOWN IS BASINGSTOKE...YOU SEE OUR DILEMMA?
• Litter, grass verges, archetectural nightmares, novelty fun things, road system, buses
• Arriving in Basingstoke to work beside a bunch of pimply faced temps derived from new age travellers who share a dog when visiting the DSS
• Townies. Mingers in short skirts. Any kind of shiny garment, i.e. Full Kappa Tracksuit.
• few decent pubs (one pub for the whole of Chineham??????), local ruffians, local tarts - thats why i moved
• has to be the Town Centre, at least someone (I suspect the enviromental health) decided to close down 'Food on Potters Walk' I also heard that New Market Square and the surrounding Piss smelling areas are to be demolished
• Fuckin' teeny-goth Manson Fans, wannabe Gangsta's and trendies. Pop tarts are nice to look at at least.
• The people who constantly slag it off but never leave
• I have worked in Basingstoke for 5 years and it has not changed (Shame) All the young people have all bonked each other and they are all happy to go into town every night and get pissed and meet the same old people. They think they have a Basingstoke accent as well (Ha! Ha!) This is one sad boring place where you have to Q to get in a pub. And as for that roundabout where they have all these daft cut out figures doing a Mexican wave what a waste of money when only the same place was flooded during the rains of June 99 and left a huge traffic jam. Sad sad hillbilly place is Basingstoke. Get a life you boring people.
• It's not Nottingham so there's not-very-much going on if you're into anything slightly off-beat (i.e. metal, rap, reggae). Better off listening to the stuff at home, it'll be more enjoyable than going into town to listen to samey dance stuff.
• A bloke called Richard Hart
• Having to go back in University holidays and finding yourself in The White Hart.
• Awful Town Centre. Not enough specialist shops.
• Too many people bad-mouth the place.
• No Thai restaurants.
• Needs redeveloping properly.
• I read your notes on Basingstoke with some interest, since I left the town some 15 years ago for the warmer climate of California. It would appear that not much has changed from when I left. I do get homesick every now and then but a quick visit to the town every couple of years takes care of that in short order. I grew up on the Popley 1 estate. Has it turned into a dump yet? It does appear that a pub or two has changed its name but the clientel remains the same. Oh well. I will keep reading for any new developments.
• The best thing about Basingstoke is the Basingstoke karate/kickboxing organisation. Work out to music, meet new people and hit them. Compete in obscure areas of the country, see the inside of many famous sporting venues. Travel for hours and return home tired but happy in the knowledge that you have gained a tasteful plastic trophy. Attract women with your newly developed manly smell. It's scientific! It's artistic! It's masochistic! Contact master, sensei, sifu teacher, guru, master (again) 10th dan in everything, Ron Peploe.
• Groups of 12-18 year olds who think they're kin ard and try to pick fights with skaters.
• The dreary people that wander around the shopping centre every Saturday. Also the Centre is dead in the evening, it's not even much fun to go window shopping - try Brighton, it's much better and the streets are humming!! Also why is every more expensive in Basingstoke?????? Petrol, cinema, food, clothes.
• The people are far too cliquey. If you don't come from Basingstoke (like me) you don't stand a chance!! The only friends I have in Basingstoke are people who don't come from there. I never go out in Basingstoke anyway; I think I'd probably rather die than ever have to set foot in Ziggys or Martines again...
• Not enough for youngsters to do. Not enough clubs, not enough clubs, not enough clubs, not enough pubs.
• The Lack of entertainment thus leading to habitual substance abuse and all making for an aggressive atmosphere..unless of couse they're loved up and drooling!
• Nobody speaks to Northeners, nobody smiles, no personality, no life and never will it have any soul.
• Going out around in town you are surrounded either by Sunday league football 'lads', or all the single mothers trying to find another victim to claim CSA money from!
• The "1984" CCTV in the town Centre. All the townies who think they're so tough, you're not. If you were put into any major city, you would wet yourself. Knowing every single sad face in the whole town. Any project that is embarked on by the council is always small, for example the Anvil, how are you meant to attract any decent acts when the place holds just a few more than my house, maybe we could get the Manic street preachers to play in my front room. All the attempts at making Basingstoke somewhere interesting to live are a joke. The examples are endless: The Anvil, This new transport museum (who will go there?), the countless attempts at getting a decent club, the Wote street statue which is basically a giant penis, the Triumphal Gates which are useless and completely ugly, and so on and so on...
• How much space am I allowed? It has a yob culture nightlife. 'Top of Town' is a war zone at closing time. No character or characters just apathetic, lazy yobs who think Baz is OK because it's got a McDonalds. Despite being populated with ex-Cockneys I doubt if any of them would dream of getting a train to London for a decent night out. Hardly any pubs or restaurants for a town of this size, even less decent pubs or restaurants (Hees Chinese is sooooooooo expensive). Everyone is ugly, seriously. It's like the Greater London Council sent the ugly Cockneys to Basingstoke and kept the good lookers for themselves (see:- Pauline Fowler, Michelle Fowler, Dot Cotton, Cindy Beale). Purple Shellsuits and slippers. Not a combination you'd see in a typical shopping area in Milan I suspect. The lovely smell of urine anywhere that isn't constantly illuminated. The travellers with no imagination (why opt out and take your cardboard box to Baz when you could be in Brighton in an hour?)

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Last updated: 2009-01-20