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Returning to Dover
4:58pm Today
I'll try to describe what this is like.
You see, on Tuesday afternoon, I was in New York City. On Wednesday morning, I was in Dover. To compare the two locations would be ridiculous. A gulf in class equivalent to that between the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and How I Contracted Herpes by Jodie Marsh. To those that have never had to deal with returning to Dover, you are truly lucky. No matter which direction you approach Dover from, there is always that moment when Dover Castle swings into view. Dover Castle, a symbol to many of the gateway to England, the majestic history of the British Empire, a vast fortress guarding the shores of our great nation. To me, Dover Castle is a giant stone sign saying "Welcome to crap-town." It mocks me. The church next to it adding the sub-title "Things shall be rubbish for you from this point forth."
Arriving by train can be particularly depressing, because the station seems to embody the whole dank nothingness of the town, and frequently one can open the train door to the sight of some hooded baseball capped idiot riding a bike shouting "awwwww bruv" at some similarly small minded cretin further down the platform evaluating which area of the wall might be best suited to being urinated on.
For many years I have wondered why Dover is as rubbish as it is. It seems to defy logic in many respects. It’s a busy port, in fact the busiest port there is. It should by rights host a vibrant and prosperous town. Portsmouth and Southampton aren't black holes of hopes and dreams so why should Dover be?
Poor local government might be an answer. But all too easy I think. After all Dover would hardly be unique in having an ineffectual council and no real prospect of that changing. Indeed I regard that as something of a symptom, not the cause of Dover's problem.
I actually believe that Dover is unique, at least in its part of the world. I have never encountered anywhere else where depression simply seems to hang in the air. A perpetual black cloud of hopelessness that hangs over the town. There's nothing more unnatural than a sunny day in Dover.
The whole place just seems to have a predisposition toward failure and mediocrity. In fact mediocrity is unfair, as that’s probably just a bit too far above the town's ambition.
Indeed, there's only one cause I can really pinpoint for the fact that Dover would show a marked improvement if it turned into a smoking hole in the ground. And that cause is its population.
Having lived in Dover most of my life, I do wonder why I am so different from the vast majority of its people. Especially since their apparent acceptance, nay, embrace of the town's death grip on hopes and dreams seems very contagious.
I'm not saying I am immune to Dover. It sucks the life out of me as it seems to everyone else but I seem alone in seeking escape sometimes. Indeed, I find that people in Dover seem predisposed to pour scorn on any attempt to succeed.
In fact, scorn and disapproval is the only area where Dover's people seem to excel en masse. A strange thing about the place is that wherever you go people have a strange tendency to eyeball you. Not just give you a passing glance, but to actually stare at you with open hostility. People that you've never met before. And it can be very unsettling if one isn't used to it, or has been away from Dover for any length of time.
A few years ago the town's unpleasantness was brought to national attention when it became a scene of racial tension between local inhabitants and asylum seekers. But for my money, the best showing of the area's bizarre populace was much more recent. An very minor earthquake hit the town in a freak occurrence. Possibly if there is a God then he/she was trying to undo their error creating the place but simply couldn't get the strength behind the effort once they looked at the town. BBC News covered the event with pleasant surprise at the disruption of their Sunday morning. They started airing phone calls from those affected. And never in the history of news coverage has the stupidity of a region been more comprehensively exposed. By the time the programme finished the newsreaders looked positively horrified by what they had unleashed on the airwaves. I wouldn't be surprised if they immediately resigned. For example, one woman, in Dover accent (the town has its own accent - think south London with a hint of crack whore) I seem to recall claimed the earthquake, which inflicted no damage on her (indeed the only town to suffer any real damage was Folkestone, whose citizens did rather better with their airtime) nor could it have was the fault of the government and that her children could have been killed. Another man claimed the earthquake had produced a massive amount of wind that had knocked him down.
I could go on and on. But it will suffice to say this: there are places more dangerous to live than Dover, but none of them could ever hope to create the sheer depression of Dover, nor should they ever wish to. Hopefully one day, the town will be given what it truly deserves.
4:58pm Today
I'll try to describe what this is like.
You see, on Tuesday afternoon, I was in New York City. On Wednesday morning, I was in Dover. To compare the two locations would be ridiculous. A gulf in class equivalent to that between the Complete Works of Shakespeare, and How I Contracted Herpes by Jodie Marsh. To those that have never had to deal with returning to Dover, you are truly lucky. No matter which direction you approach Dover from, there is always that moment when Dover Castle swings into view. Dover Castle, a symbol to many of the gateway to England, the majestic history of the British Empire, a vast fortress guarding the shores of our great nation. To me, Dover Castle is a giant stone sign saying "Welcome to crap-town." It mocks me. The church next to it adding the sub-title "Things shall be rubbish for you from this point forth."
Arriving by train can be particularly depressing, because the station seems to embody the whole dank nothingness of the town, and frequently one can open the train door to the sight of some hooded baseball capped idiot riding a bike shouting "awwwww bruv" at some similarly small minded cretin further down the platform evaluating which area of the wall might be best suited to being urinated on.
For many years I have wondered why Dover is as rubbish as it is. It seems to defy logic in many respects. It’s a busy port, in fact the busiest port there is. It should by rights host a vibrant and prosperous town. Portsmouth and Southampton aren't black holes of hopes and dreams so why should Dover be?
Poor local government might be an answer. But all too easy I think. After all Dover would hardly be unique in having an ineffectual council and no real prospect of that changing. Indeed I regard that as something of a symptom, not the cause of Dover's problem.
I actually believe that Dover is unique, at least in its part of the world. I have never encountered anywhere else where depression simply seems to hang in the air. A perpetual black cloud of hopelessness that hangs over the town. There's nothing more unnatural than a sunny day in Dover.
The whole place just seems to have a predisposition toward failure and mediocrity. In fact mediocrity is unfair, as that’s probably just a bit too far above the town's ambition.
Indeed, there's only one cause I can really pinpoint for the fact that Dover would show a marked improvement if it turned into a smoking hole in the ground. And that cause is its population.
Having lived in Dover most of my life, I do wonder why I am so different from the vast majority of its people. Especially since their apparent acceptance, nay, embrace of the town's death grip on hopes and dreams seems very contagious.
I'm not saying I am immune to Dover. It sucks the life out of me as it seems to everyone else but I seem alone in seeking escape sometimes. Indeed, I find that people in Dover seem predisposed to pour scorn on any attempt to succeed.
In fact, scorn and disapproval is the only area where Dover's people seem to excel en masse. A strange thing about the place is that wherever you go people have a strange tendency to eyeball you. Not just give you a passing glance, but to actually stare at you with open hostility. People that you've never met before. And it can be very unsettling if one isn't used to it, or has been away from Dover for any length of time.
A few years ago the town's unpleasantness was brought to national attention when it became a scene of racial tension between local inhabitants and asylum seekers. But for my money, the best showing of the area's bizarre populace was much more recent. An very minor earthquake hit the town in a freak occurrence. Possibly if there is a God then he/she was trying to undo their error creating the place but simply couldn't get the strength behind the effort once they looked at the town. BBC News covered the event with pleasant surprise at the disruption of their Sunday morning. They started airing phone calls from those affected. And never in the history of news coverage has the stupidity of a region been more comprehensively exposed. By the time the programme finished the newsreaders looked positively horrified by what they had unleashed on the airwaves. I wouldn't be surprised if they immediately resigned. For example, one woman, in Dover accent (the town has its own accent - think south London with a hint of crack whore) I seem to recall claimed the earthquake, which inflicted no damage on her (indeed the only town to suffer any real damage was Folkestone, whose citizens did rather better with their airtime) nor could it have was the fault of the government and that her children could have been killed. Another man claimed the earthquake had produced a massive amount of wind that had knocked him down.
I could go on and on. But it will suffice to say this: there are places more dangerous to live than Dover, but none of them could ever hope to create the sheer depression of Dover, nor should they ever wish to. Hopefully one day, the town will be given what it truly deserves.
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