The Idler

Croydon

Amenities:
Full of mockney wankers and Wetherspoon pubs. For those who are unfortunate enough to be born and raised in the locale all know of its perils and pitfalls.

West Croydon bus station serves as a kind of halfway house for the mental health ward at Mayday hospital. The floor is littered with KFC chicken bones like some ancient caveman dwelling and the air stinks of piss and Vaseline. From here, if you avoid being chopped into bitesize chunks and stuffed into a second-hand suitcase, you can make your way up to the high street. Be careful not to look anyone in the eye or smile, this is often misconstrudled and could lead to verbal and even physical abuse. For example the offended party might say something along the lines of – “Whatchoo lookin’ at you fuckin’ cunt?” and then poke you in the eye with a half-snouted Lambert and Butler.

You will see (out of the good eye) another side of Croydon folk at well-known Croydon nightspot ‘The Blue Orchid’. This is not to be confused with ‘The Meat Market’ in Surrey Street, though the purpose is much the same. If you are lucky (depending on how you define lucky) you might spot page three-boob-cruise-Croydon-born Lindsey Dawn McKensie, (who I went to school with incidentally), or Beppe from EastEnders. However you are more likely to spot groups of middle-aged women on the pull and they’ll probably be clad in leather and leopard-skin, chain smoking, laughing like drains and eating Scotch eggs and garlic bread. The toilets quite often have police incident boards in them but generally speaking if you stick to the 80s lounge you can avoid trouble. Just be careful no-one slips Rophypnol into your Bacardi Breezer, else you might not conciously find yourself being shagged senseless by someone almost certainly called Steve but whom you won’t know from Adam.

For fun,why not try the lift in the Drummond Centre (it’s glass!) or indulge in a bit of thieving? Try on a variety of hats in Debenhams if the mood takes you. And it’s always a good laugh to hang around at a bus stop for a few hours spitting at old people and drinking 20/20.

Your social status in Croydon depends upon whether you live closer to the chocolate factory or shit works. The latter being the less desirable of the two. I lived closer to the shit works.

Shit.

Sarah Janes