Its not in my nature to condemn an entire area, every area has something wonderful about it, even a just post atom bomb Nagasaki had a wonderfully intact Bento bar which did the finest sushi rolls in Japan, the fact that they carried enough radiation to power a large dildo for 4 hours (probably long enough to resonate some sort of sexual twitch through something as large as a Lisa Riley, Dawn French or just smaller, a Beluga Whale) slightly detracted from any chance of a Michelin star. To be fair, Southend does have something that fills you with a kind of warmth, something that will underline the memory, the fucking Train Station, Southend Victoria, iconic in the sense that when you are there, you know you will soon be leaving (praying that the metal hasn’t been stolen from the overhead power lines, or more likely the train has been stolen and is currently being joy rode like some fucked up episode of Thomas the Tank Engine).
If you are lucky enough to come in to Southend Central (you probably slept past Billericay), you will be right in the ants nest, a nest of single mums, twitching pre pensioners and orangy Essex folk looking like Oompa Loompas after a huge course of steroids. It’s like all the scum of England made for the sea and the boats which promised to take them to a better place (Davy Jones’ locker) failed to turn up. So they pitched up and made a go of it.
The ‘High’ Street is a shocking example of bad civic planning, or excellent planning if you think this is a good order of shops; Superdrugs, Claire’s Accessories, Superdrugs, Greggs, Superdrugs, Greggs, Greggs, JJB Sports, Claire’s Superdrugs, Accessorize, and just in case you have got to this point without managing to buy 2 for 1 shampoo, a pasty some butterfly clips or some hair bands to pull your hair back so far that your forehead is riding just above your arsehole, there is one final pasty shop, and then, a fucking Ann Summers? With the kind of ‘talent’ on display up there, laying a large sheet over that nights ‘fuck’ with a large picture of Susan Boyle on it would be considered lingerie. A romantic meal would, I imagine, consist of said pasty and 12 bottles of blue WKD, at which point the poor girls legs open up automatically like some kind of spunky Venus fly trap and after being fed and ‘watered’ by a man, the only thing missing to make it the kind of evening she dreamed of while reading and dreaming about being the new Jade Goody, would have been getting a massive jewellery assisted punch round the chops from Trev, or Tel, the local boy racer and dad of countless. Why work to get on the property ladder when you can just cock gag your way on it with a screaming confused unplanned baby as a down payment on a perfectly liveable council hovel, and with countless Mother and Baby sun bed sessions, Southend is a great place to bring a child up.
Down to the sea front, you have ‘Adventure Island’ the UK’s number 1 free admission theme park? You can’t actually do anything in there for free, so it’s hardly a chart position that Alton Towers or Chessington would be fretting about. A good theme park would probably be called ‘Town Land’, where for a day, people can experience what its like to live fairly, pay something into the system, give some children a hearty and filling meal for dinner, perhaps help them with their homework, great the Mrs with a hug and kiss and not a left hook or drop kick, and drive within the speed limit, they would come out feeling euphoric, and as though, briefly, transported to another world, slowly adjusting back to their own cathartic one.
Along the front, tiny little chip and fish places sell minute portions of tiny sprat and chips which are served in about an inch of grease, these are slowly dissolved in the motionless toothless mouths of what look like pensioners, but are probably around their mid thirties, a life of total caning taking its unsurprising effect, the real pensioners are long gone, swirling round the town like tiny whirlwinds, human talc long dead.
A walk back through the town (which is a must, just to check that the whole thing wasn’t a cruel prank) sees little gatherings of 12 year olds having overly complex relationships with people their own age (and of course Trev and Tel, the boy racers, who probably think that a ‘paedophile’ is an engine part or some sort of tool for dicking around with an engine) and just lots of giddy wayward people zig zagging their way down the shops with kill me written all over their poor simple mish mashed faces.
In summary then, I can only imagine that Southend is like receiving anal sex, it sounds like a good idea at the time, but probably really hurts, but people return to it when the memories of the back door gurning have dissipated. For example, I doubt somebody would return to Southend the week after, probably after 6 months, only to find out nothing much has changed, a bit like opening a dustbin lid which hasn’t been emptied for months and not being surprised by the maggots and stench.
I am of course only joking and had a wonderful day, and can’t wait to return, and the people there are lovely and no interbred at all, and I only wrote this because I was so sad to leave that its created a bitterness that only doing the above can sort out. Anyway, you wont be happy with me if you have read this because you can obviously read and are therefore probably planning to leave anyway, which is a real shame because like I say, it’s a great place. See you soon. xx
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