Let's move to a town so relentlessly dull it has a museum dedicated to carpets! This week: Kidderminster

10th January 2023

What’s it about?

In the heart of Britain’s least-visited-on-purpose county, Worcestershire, Kidderminster is an innocuous little settlement to retire from society.

Nothing ever happens here to threaten the status quo, so long as you don’t piss off the incumbent community of hard-as-fuck travellers. Even the football club only threaten to be giantkillers occasionally.

The town’s nearest thing to a claim to fame is Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant living close by. It really is that mundane.

Any good points?

Everything has fascinatingly bizarre names. The football team are called the Harriers. The local paper is The Shuttle. The carpet museum is called the Museum of Carpet. Okay, not everything.

The Harriers themselves are a perennially under-achieving non-league side who nearly knocked West Ham out of last season’s FA Cup but cocked it up in injury time. They even won a title and didn’t get promoted, back in 1994, because their ground was too wooden and shit.

Otherwise? There’s a decent railway network and you’re a stone’s throw from the M5, so escape is possible. Beyond that you’re pretty much fucked.

Beautiful landscape?

Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner described the town as ‘uncommonly devoid of visual pleasure and architectural interest’, and the snobby Nazi supporter had a point.

But while the town itself is an utter shithole, it does have the benefit of being on the verges of the undeniably stunning Severn Valley landscape. It’s the terminus of the steam Severn Valley Railway, pumping noxious coal fumes into the air as you enjoy stale sandwiches and views you can barely see through the tiny fucking windows.

Hang out at…

You may have heard of the carpet museum? An excellent place to meet septuagenarian singles or to simply curl up and wait to die. On the upside it does provide an opportunity to snigger at phrases like ‘rough shag’ and ‘deep pile’.

Want to see how exotic animals from equatorial climates like shit British weather? At West Midlands Safari Park lions, elephants, rhinos and giraffes stand about shivering, wondering what the hell went wrong.

There used to be monkeys but they all died overnight from a mysterious virus, which had no connection to insurance claims lodged against the park from visitors who’d had their wing mirrors ripped off by the evil little bastards.

Where to buy?

Brave as you are skint? The Horsefair, where you can rub shoulders with the traveller community, is powerfully affordable.

Rich? The hamlet of Wolverley is so posh Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant lives here, enjoying relative anonymity and definitely not to be seen most nights of the week propping up the bar in the Queen’s Head pub by the canal.

From the streets:

Hannah Tomlinson, aged 18: “Not only is there fuck all here, it’s not even near anywhere. It’s suspiciously like a long-running experiment in despair.”

Robert Plant, aged 74: “I’m not Robert Plant. Fuck off.”

Getting three grand compo for a fall in a shopping centre: Sarah Lancashire's greatest achievements

9th January 2023

HAPPY Valley star Sarah Lancashire, aged 58, believes that despite the BAFTAs all her greatest achievements are from outside acting. Here are her top five:

Faking a fall for £3k

I was a struggling student in London, spotted a Tizer spill down the precinct and realised, almost in slow motion, that no-one had put a cone out yet. I seized my chance and went arse over tit outside John Menzies. The compo was three grand and off the books. Paid me through drama school.

Starting a chant at the football

I got taken to Boundary Park for an Oldham Athletic game and it was shite. Two-nill down to Shrewsbury in the old second division. But to amuse myself I started a chant about who the bastard in the black was and before I’d finished it had gone around the whole North Stand. Never been prouder. Up the Latics even if they are crap.

A 132 checkout at darts

Through the 90s, to wind down from Corrie, I played for the Owd Kitts darts team and in a grudge match against our local rivals I produced some bloody scintillating darts. I checked out on 140 with a treble twenty, treble sixteen, double twelve finish. They practically carried me out on their shoulders and we all got a free pint of mild.

Doing cash-in-hand fencing work

There are a lot of gaps in an acting career, and I fill them with foreigners. Me, a couple of firemen, a police officer on disability pension and Barry, who’s got an ankle tag, do fencing for cash. Whether mixing concrete, digging holes or stealing panels from round the back of Wickes, I find outdoor work good for the soul. And my agent can’t take his usual 20 fucking per cent.

Finishing the Stalybridge Eight

Starting with the Station Bar, which is right there on the platform, and taking in the pubs with the shortest and longest names in Britain, you have to go around all eight pubs and do a pint and a shot in each one. You get a passport stamped in every one. I managed the lot. Derek Jacobi had to bow out after he shat himself in the Rose & Crown.