Britain's Best City

[Cheese & Biscuits]

65. Bradford

The first proper 'Marmite' city on the list.

C&B Opinion: Only been for the football, might try to pop there for a curry one day.
Description: Bradford gained city status in 1897 and to celebrate, the city continually stays in the 19th century. The city itself hosts two annual film festivals, honestly! It is also very much known for it's ethnic diversity and the only positive I have ever heard about the place is its fantastic curry houses.
Famous People: The Bronte Sisters, Gareth Gates
C&B Fact: Bradford was the first city to serve school dinners. Lumpy custard and stodge are forever grateful.
65. Peterborough

C&B Opinion: The town is a dump and as a regular user of it's train station I can confirm it is full of weirdos.
Description: A "city" in Cambridgeshire in East Anglia, Peterborough has many delights such as a KFC and a Waitrose and has a population of almost 200,000, 32% of which are hardened criminals. A lot of the city is also below sea level so keep burning those fossil fuels everyone and one day, who knows...
Famous People: Sir Henry Royce, Andy Bell
C&B Fact: Catherine of Aragon is buried there. Even in death the poor women is a tortured soul.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

That's it for the time being - more later

 

[IanH]

I feel I'm going to enjoy this feature.

My best friend went to university in Bradford (apparently they have a good International Relations Department, as he studied Peace Studies), so I visited about five or six times. We'd normally go for a piss up on the Friday evening, I remember there being some decent little dive bars playing good music, hit the Yorkshire Dales for some weekend walking and then go for incredible curries on the Sunday evening. The naan breads would be the size of the table, but of good quality and it really was almost reason enough to go to the city. Since he left the university, I doubt I'll have any reason to go back, and I suppose including the Dales in my memories is a bit generous but I always had very enjoyable trips.

I've also been to Stoke four times I think, but usually didn't make it further than 400m from the train station. I used to go running up in the Lake District, and often would catch the train from Bristol - Stoke and get picked up by some friends driving up from London. Two of the trips were return legs, and one time when I arrived they were already waiting so didn't see anything more than a local fish and chip shop. The other time tho, I arrived about three hours before them (heavy traffic near Luton apparently - no doubt that would have beeen pretty low down on the list too, if it counted as a city). Anyway, I walked around Staffordshire Uni, and then tried to find what could be considered a city centre but after a fruitless search and being accosted by some absolutely terrifying locals I gave up and returned to the refuge of fish and chip shop. I can confidently say I will never go back.

 

[IanH]

tldr; i have visited Bradford and Stoke and almost nothing happened.

 

[Camborne Gills]

Having been to all four places, none of the descriptions are overly harsh.

 

[slaphead]

Coventry is in the running for UK City of Culture. I personally think the Luftwaffe had the best idea.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

Next we have 7 cities, all tied in 58th place.

58. Aberdeen

C&B Opinion: Never been, no plans to.

Description: A city on the east coast of Scotland. It is known as the "Granite City" or the "Grey City" and as such there's an opening in the local tourist board if anyone is interested? It is also situated between two river mouths which is handy as it gives you more options to leave quickly.

Famous People: Graeme Garden, Dennis Law

C&B Fact: There are more than 30 places known as Aberdeen around the world and at least 29 applications to remedy that.

58. Bangor

C&B Opinion: She's no Kelly Brook but I'd Bangor

Description: The name, Bongor, comes from an old Welsh word for 'wattled enclosure', whatever that means. It's situated on the norh coast of Wales. It has the fabulous distinction of having the second longest pier in Wales called, wait for it, Garth Pier. Who names a pier after a character from Wayne's World?

Famous People: Duffy, Wayne Hennessey

C&B Fact: Under 16's are banned from the city centre after 9pm, presumably as a gift for being so good?

58. Dundee

C&B Opinion: Mmmmm....cake

Description: Scotland's 4th largest city and the only one named after an Australian crocodile hunter. It was also one of a handful of areas to vote "Yes" in the Scottish independance referendum. Fuck off then! Dundee has two professional football clubs and their grounds are the closest together of any 2 in Britain.

Famous People: Brian Cox (actor), Thomas Dick

C&B Fact: Home of the Comic, The Beano, it now gets most of its comedy from the football.

58. Gloucester

C&B Opinion: Better than its position suggests

Description: Situated in the south-west of England, Gloucester is pretty much in Wales. Its name is also derived from Welsh. It is probably most famous for the duo of Fred and Rosemary West, who murdered 12 women. It sits next to Cheltenham and if we're being honest, it's the lesser place of the two.

Famous People: Alastair Cook, Simon Pegg

C&B Fact: The Wall's ice cream factory is the largest in Europe.

58. Kingston upon Hull

C&B Opinion: Batting above its average

Description: Situated on the River Hull in the Humber Estuary, it has been chosen to be the UK's city of culture for 2017, just for shits and giggles. Hull was targeted in the war and was blitzed in 1941 and the town has been on a downward spiral ever since. I think we're all surprised how highly this placed.

Famous People: Maureen Lipman, Paul Heaton, not Rod Hull

C&B Fact: The boiled sweet was invented in Hull and was a way of trying to mask that annoying fucking accent.

58. Sunderland

C&B Opinion: Suburb of Newcastle

Description: Historically, Sunderland was part of County Durham but now it's part of Tyne and Wear. The term for someone from Sunderland is Geordie Mackem, which means 'make them' which is what Adam Johnson used as part of his defence. Sunderland is known for its ship building and the last shipyard closed in 1988.

Famous People: Emilie Sande, Jill Scott

C&B Fact: The city hosts the largest free airshow in Europe each July.

58. Wolverhampton

C&B Opinion: It's probably as bad as it sounds

Description: Now part of the West Midlands, used to be part of Staffordshire, it's been treated like a kid with divorced parents. Named after a woman called Wulfrun who founded the town in 985. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Wolverhampton was a prolific manufacturer of bicycles but the manufacturers learnt their lesson and moved out by the 1960s.

Famous People: Eric Idle, Mervyn KIng

C&B Fact: The city's motto, "Out of darkness cometh light" is symbolised in the gold and black colours of WWFC.

 

[Alty]

Coventry is an absolute shit tip and the only thing I was actually keen to see, i.e. the cathedral, was absurdly expensive. As an impoverished under-employed person at the time, I gave it a miss.

Spent a couple of days in Stoke when visiting a friend who was studying at Keele. Bit crap.

I quite liked Bradford though. That media museum thing was ace.

 

[Alty]

Hull is alright. My parents lived there for a while. Some pleasing architecture and the locals seemed friendly enough. Really quite a decent pub scene too.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

57. Southampton

C&B Opinion: I think I drove through it once, couldn't have been memorable

Description: Sitting on the south coast, it is Hampshire's largest city. It's name is sometimes shorterned to So'ton because its residents are too thick to remember the spelling of their own home. It was also the sailing point for the Titanic so hitting the iceberg wasn't the worst part of the journey for its passengers.

Famous People: Craig David, Matt Cardle (?)

C&B Fact: The Mayflower actually set sail from Southampton. There's a moral here somewhere about bad things happening, boats and Southampton.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

56. Chelmsford

C&B Opinion: An absolute cesspool full of morons who ruin my day each time I board a train that stops at this dive.

Description: One of the UK's newest cities, it sits in the middle of, and is the scar on the face of, the beautiful county of Essex. The demonym for a Chelmsford resident is officially "Twat". It's also the home of radio with Marconi opened his wireless factory there.

Famous People: Grayson Perry, Nigel Spink

C&B Fact: Location, Location, Location voted Chelmsford as the 8th best place to live proving that Kirstie and Phil are a pair of bellends.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

How the hell has Wolverhampton scored that highly? For the record, I was the -5 on that.

 

[blade1889]

Not voted for any of these yet but can confirm Wolverhampton and Stoke are truly awful places. The former deserving of a lower place finish. Hull ain't great but its reputation precedes it Imo

 

[Stevencc]

Ouch, Dundee.

SALTIRE won't like that one bit.

 

[mowgli]

Been to Chelmsford once and couldn't wait to leave, it's an absolute shit pit!

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

54. Leicester

C&B Opinion: The in-laws live there but in the nice suburbs. The city centre is something else entirely.

Description: In the East Midlands, Leicester is one of the oldest cities in the UK however it lost its city status in the 11th century and only regained it in 1919. It lost out to Hull of all places for the UK city of culture award, a bitter pill to swallow. Recently, Richard III was found in a car park in Leicester and was reburied at the cathedral.

Famous People: The Attenboroughs, David Icke

C&B Fact: In 1961, Leicester entered the Guinness Book of World Records for having the largest Tesco in Europe and the most number of people on zero-hours contracts.

54. Portsmouth

C&B Opinion: Ahoy there sailor

Description: Portsmouth is the UK's only island city. Sounds exotic, doesn't it? It's not. The Spinnaker Tower is the tallest structure outside of London and is very handy for the local residents so they can look out at civilisation beyond the city walls. The name Portsmouth can trace its roots back to Old English where it means "buying the FA Cup".

Famous People: Peter Sellers, James Callaghan

C&B Fact: It's the most densely populated city in Britain.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Coventry is an absolute shit tip and the only thing I was actually keen to see, i.e. the cathedral, was absurdly expensive. As an impoverished under-employed person at the time, I gave it a miss.

...

I quite liked Bradford though. That media museum thing was ace.

Coventry is (or was) the site of arguably the most interesting post-war redevelopment plan in the UK, a scheme that's all the more heroic precisely because it isn't. It is (or was) noble in its compromise. It echoes Pope Sixtus V's programme for Rome, organised in relation to 2 spires and 2 towers, but it's defiantly modern in its deployment of elevation and scale, and the axial precincts are pollarded and occluded unexpected ways. Unsurprisingly, this fascinating and nuanced scheme is as unappreciated by the present, nescient Powers That Be as it is by you, who have seen fit to traduce it with fatuous ornament. We used to be able to do this, as a nation - confident, bold and optimistic projects, distinctly British, distinctly democratic. Coventry's Upper Precinct was imitated worldwide. Now we prostitute such things to "public private partnerships" whilst ignorami shrug and label them a "shit tip".

Bradford's fabulous photo collection is to be moved to the V&A in London, and "unsustainable" parts of the museum's activities have been "de-emphasised". Northern Powerhouse!

 

[Etienne Vermeer]

Ah if only we could vote for more than one crap place, I think this list would be more accurate.

 

[blade1889]

Does anybody ever fact-check Martys posts or do we just go along with it cos we barely understand what hes saying and it makes life easier?

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

53. Derby

C&B Opinion: Top of the league, you fucked it up

Description: Derby is situated in the no-mans land area of Britain. Labelled as East Midlands but it's not really. It's home to Rolls-Royce and Bombardier proving that people love to think of new, imaginative ways of getting out of Derby. It also has one of the most secure car parks in the world, quite a feat given the type of people living in Derby.

Famous People: Florence Nightingale, Jessica Garlick

C&B Fact: Tomb Raider was developed in Derby.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

That's it for all cities that score 0 or less...now we move on to the real winners.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

Remember,

37.
Armagh
Belfast
Canterbury
Carlisle
Chichester
Derry/Londonderry
Hereford
Lichfield
Lisburn
Newport
Newry
Perth
St Albans
St Asaph
Stirling
Swansea

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

Ah if only we could vote for more than one crap place, I think this list would be more accurate.

I did contemplate this but I didn't want it ending up as a shit list.

 

[Stagat]

Please add some comments (wit optional) with your nominations on why you love or hate that city.

Been a distinct lack of these so far. Enjoying the write-ups though.

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

Been a distinct lack of these so far. Enjoying the write-ups though.

There was a distinct lack of them submitted. Some people did. I'll try to add some in but it's slim pickings.

 

[Martino Knockavelli]

Well I wrote a penetrating and passionate commentary on Coventry as a thinly disguised pretext for insulting Alty and got no Likes at all, so.

 

[Craig]

I voted Bradford, it's a lovely city and superior to it's neighbour, which has obviously placed higher, in pretty much every respect.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Fuck off, Derby is brilliant! the 3rd was from me!

 

[Cheese & Biscuits]

Fuck off, Derby is brilliant! the 3rd was from me!

The people have spoken!

 

[Techno Natch]

How did I forget Stoke. I have a few friends from there it is a truly awful City from the few times I've visited. Sorry Dave!

Gloucester is alright surprised someone would have it on their dislike list.