Crap Towns Returns

The genuinely rough guide to Britain is back. Ten years after it first lifted the concrete slab in the garden of England, Crap Towns returns to dish the dirt on the latest planning disasters, urban blight and posh blighters disfiguring our nation.

''My friends and I once spent an evening in Thetford. Some people threw a cucumber at us.''

''Southampton: the only place in the UK I''ve ever seen someone get on a bus and nonchalantly spark up a crack pipe.''

''Bacup long claimed to have the shortest street in Britain - Elgin Street - but recently lost the title to Ebeneezer Place, an even shorter street in Wick, to the fury of locals, who complained that the Scottish rival was only ''a corner''.''