It's yet another "not very entertaining stuff that's going on in my life" post, hooray! But I do have some material to make it a bit more amusing this time, so don't write it off just yet.
As I think I mentioned I was going to, I went to examine Sheffield for myself to see whether it would be better than Lancaster or not, and the conclusion was "probably", with a bonus "certainly cheaper". In my wanderings, I surveyed the cheapest area (crimeville, they get occasional shootings there), the second-cheapest area (really quite nice, apparently ex-council houses that were assigned to retired or disabled people), and, accidentally, the single most expensive residential street in Sheffield (cue drooling. If I had one of those houses I might give up my plan to eventually have a custom-built house).
There wasn't a lot of comical material there though, because it was all pretty nice, and the funniest material is borderline horror, so in order to not be boring, I have to present a description of Sheffield as a comparison to Derby, where I am now and for another few months.
| Derby | Sheffield | | All buildings are uniform terraced brick. | Buildings are a delightfully insane mix of castle-style stonework, brick, prefab, metal, tudor-style wood-frame things and glass. | | Every female in the entire town looks like these monsters. (Aside: in a small-scale poll, Americans seem to think Tasha is the scariest, while others are split between devil-Savannah and the K+K monster twins.) | There is no noticable pattern, females look like human beings. | | Every male in the entire town (present company excluded, I'm just visiting) looks like Jamie Oliver, though I guarantee they can't cook, and possibly can't dress themselves. You are in a maze of twisty little faces all alike. | There is no noticable pattern, males look like human beings. | | Sewage-scent occasionally wafts through the town centre. Where it doesn't smell of sewage it smells of kebabs and Mr Smoketoomuch. | I don't know, there was a bit of a brewery smell in one area, nothing too offensive. Most of it smelled like trees. | | Roadworks are conveniently placed throughout the town to force all pedestrians to pass Argos. Nobody is working on the roadworks, but they're making a lot of noise anyway. One-way streets do the same thing for vehicles. Every road looks alike except for the one with Argos, so you can't tell where you're going until it's too late and you find you've purchased an inexpensive toaster. | Roadworks are placed in a manner that barely inconveniences anyone, and are being worked on with near-silent rubber-coated mallets (really, I'm not making that up). All roads lead to approximately wherever you're trying to get to, and tree-covered hills act as fantastic landmarks and orientation-devices. If there is an Argos, it didn't at any point try to capture my soul while I was there. | | A pattern I've noticed, the cheapest scummiest areas on the outskirts of cities tend to be comprised of car-repair places, and other car-related things. Every outskirt of Derby is full of car-repair places. | Only crimeville in the north had prominent car-repair places. Cheapland to the south had the next step up, hardware stores. Derby seemingly has no hardware stores at all. | | Interested in going out and doing something? Why not try getting drunk? No? Fuck you then! | There are two universities, both reasonably inventive with the things-to-do they offer. Also many weird little bookshops and the like. |
To be fair, I might miss Derby when I leave. If you look at the comparison above you'll see that the Derby side is a bit funny, and any humour in the Sheffield side is purely because of comparison to Derby. Still, I'm sure I'll find something to make fun of wherever I go, I'll just have to make a bit more effort. It'll probably be good for me, my inventiveness is atrophying with Derby just making me have a cheap laugh at its horribleness every time I go outside.
[19:54]
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