Leicester

Pubs: Princess Charlotte, The Magazine – always empty

It’s hard to put across what it is about Leicester that makes it what it is. I struggled for many months to identify what made it different.
It wasn’t violence – there wasnt really any which was a good point.
Poverty? – there wasn’t really any real poverty, again a good point.
Unemployment was average; we were all unemployed and not seeking work and the dole never hassled us about it.
There were plenty of bars, a couple of venues, a good library, a museum, a cheap market…

It was something else.

What made the place utterly depressing? It wasnt until I read “prick up your ears” the Joe Orton biography, that I realised what it was.In it was something that seemed to define the problem- the city’s latin motto translates as “Always The Same”.

The town seems to be smothered by a blanket of utterly unyielding blandness. It’s in the buildings, it’s in the town planning, it’s in the atmosphere, it’s in the unenthusiastic response of the crowd at gigs, it pervades every hour and day of Leicester life. A stultifying sense of unchanging, unimaginative, comfortable existence.

You don’t even need to visit the place: check out the Leicester City Council website and see for yourself this place has no history apart from a biography of the mayor.

Shaun Alcock

This year, the Leicester man is wearing Kappa shell-suit, argyle socks, white (spotless) Reebok trainers, a large gold effect chain and has a grade 1/2 haircut. His phone has a St.George’s flag on it and he will mainly be driving quite fast in a souped-up Nova. The Leicester woman will be teaching her illegitimate children how to smoke fags and steal things. And will mainly be wearing leggings.

If a town if best described by it’s people, then Leicester is a large drunk man throwing chicken burger wrappers into the street.

Ben Atherton