Tell me some surprising but obvious FACT about the place you live in

I have my own postcode. Stick those 4 letters and 3 digits only on an envelope and it’ll come to my house.

I once lived on the street where the first flying bomb to hit London, er, hit.

I was not living there at the time.

I’m lost here, is this your own version.

It’s the original version, which was considered too sensible for cornish types, who preferred to imagine a polygamous bloke watching each of his seven wives/sisters lugging around 392 felines.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven knives
Each knife had seven racks
Each rack had seven cats
Each cat had seven *****
****, cats, racks, knives
How many were going to St Ives?

*It’s the radiation from all that Radon.

Seventh best place in the UK – FACT

The chap who played R2D2 in star wars lives less than two miles from me.

I once took Kenny ‘R2-D2’ Baker for dinner to interview him for a magazine I was writing for at the time.
His legs are too short for him to sit comfortably on a car seat without modifications, so he was standing in the footwell on the way home, a little worse for wear after 2 halves of Guinness.
Got pulled over on Blackpool Road and had to explain to 2 very bemused coppers why I had a drunk dwarf standing in the front of my car!

Back to the factoids, Preston’s Kenny Baker is the only actor to appear in every one of the Star Wars films. He bought his Mercedes off Dave Prowse, better known as Darth Vader or the Green Cross Code Man!

Longest /. highest / deepest canal tunnel in the country starts (or ends………..) in Marsden.
Surprisingly (to me….) the railway tunnels that are alongside it don’t seem to merit the same accolade….

Village was also a luddite stronghold and ( a traditionI’m hapy to uphold….) and, the Big Mill opposite our gaff was, apparently, the largest of its type in Europe when it was built, can find out if that is fact though……

I don’t live there now, but:
It’s the real birthplace of railways (not bloody Swindon, Mr Nutt)
It’s where the friction match was invented. That’s two of the most important inventions of the 19th century.
It claims the widest high street in England.
It’s now a right sh1thole.
Ridley Scott (Bladerunner, ALien, Gladiator, Thelma & Louise etc) went to school there (my school), and the opening shots of Bladerunner with gouts of flame shooting from chimneys etc, was supposedly based upon his memories of the nearby chemical works.

i used to live in grays. it’s a complete sh!thole but surprisingly full of history.

the town is built in and around old flint and gravel pits. used to make for good riding when i was a kid.

nearby Tilbury has one of the best examples of a Blockhouse fort. built origianlly in 15-something. there is another smaller Napoleonic fort, Coalhouse. there is now a cycle/walking path between the two. supposedly hard going but never ridden it.

Elizabeth 1 addressed her troops (on the field outside my mates house) as the Spanish Armada sailed up the river.

Alfred Russel Wallace, antropologist, biologist type guy, was born and bred in Grays. Wallce independantly came up with his own ideas on evolution. it was because of him that Darwin decided to eventually publish his ideas on evolution – before Wallce could do the same.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit and a Jamioqui (sp?) video were fimled in the town using the old theatre.

Russel Brand comes from Grays. sorry about that one…..

if you go over the tracks to Seabrook Rise, you will find drugs.

Chelmsford – where i sort of used to live – is the birth place of radio. Guglio Marconi developed and first transmitted radio from here.

is the only town with a cathedral that is not a city. some people call it Chelmsford City, but they are wrong.

Richard II moved his head quaters to Chelmsford during the Peasant’s Revolt.

god i’m bored.

was in Lindau, Germany, for the best part of a year. it is an island town sitting in the Lake of Consatnce (Bodensee – whcih translates to Floor Lake(?)) it is the only Bavarian town to have an international harbour.
there is no official border between Austrai, Switzerland and Germany as far a s the lake is concerned.
it is full of old people in summer where it seems they come to die. being a busy train terminal many ambulances get stuck at the crossing, either trying to get onto the island or to the hospital the other side of the tracks. because of this many people die at the crossing in the back of an ambulance.
there used to be a small concentration/work camp on the edge of town during the 30’s/40’s.
nearby Friedrichshafen is home to the Zeppelin airships.

now in a ‘village’ just outside Munich, called Haar which literally means Hair in German. but it comes from old Bavarian meaning forest clearing, Hardt.

across the tracks is the old (and current) mental hospital. it’s the building where crazy people, children, jews etc taken to after being selected from nearby Dachau. then Dr. Mengele proceeded to do his nasty tests on his “patients”. the building still stands. bit odd really.

it is a realy boring plac to live. everywhere is flat for 10 miles or more. annoying because you can see the alps.

J

Home to 1/3 of the worlds fresh water,

I don’t think that’s true about Michigan. Lake Baikal has more water than all the great lakes put together. And yes I know that there are lots of small lakes but no way is that as much area as the other lakes combined, and hence less than Baikal. Plus Minnesota has more lakes iirc. And in any case, Greenland alone contains more than 10 times as much water as Baikal in its ice sheet.

Leominster, where I grew up, has the largest parish church in the country. It’s also a candidate for the most mis-pronounced name in England.

I was born in Boston, lincs. This is the most annoying place to have been born since EVERYONE says ‘oh, you were born in America!’ NO YOU TOOL THERE’S MORE THAN ON BOSTON. It’s also where some of the Pilgrim Fathers sailed from to Amsterdam before going to the New World. Boston in America is not however so-named because of this, but because a radical vicar of the church in Boston encouraged a lot of people to emigrate for religious reasons and he himself helped to found the colony.

“The name Hanslope consists of two parts. The first is a persons name, Hama, and the second, the old english word slæpe. Hanslope therefore means ‘muddy place or slope of a man called Hama’.”

And no, it’s not that great for riding in the winter…

Britian is a multicultural country

Preston’s Kenny Baker is the only actor to appear in every one of the Star Wars films.

apart from Anthony Daniels.

st ives: you were.

Sheffield: Has more scruffy bastards in 10 year old Rab coats than any city in the world. ( I blame Rab himself)

Preston’s Kenny Baker is the only actor to appear in every one of the Star Wars films.

apart from Anthony Daniels.

And Ewan McGregor’s uncle

That’ll be Dennis Lawson

Here’s mine – despite proudly proclaiming itself as “The Honest Toun” there are loads of thieving feckers in Musselburgh, East Lothian.

andyp – yer alright, i’m an honourary lancastrian these days.. 😀

I was not living there at the time.

Shame 😉

Here in Guernsey we have our own money which although sterling is not legal tender in the UK and we still have £1.00 notes.

Our pillar boxes are blue

I live in the village of Sorn, Ayrshire, home to the UK’s first convicted and jail-sentenced Internet Stalker. According to a bloke I was talking to the other day.

Michael Palin grew up in the house three houses down from my parent’s house/the house i’ve grown up in.

Tim

Silverpigeon is in Guernsey? There’s not much mtbing there surely?

It has the smallest park in the UK

I Live in Brum. Apart from the aforementioned canals, it has the first ever ODEON cinema in the world, just down the road from me. And loads of smackheads. Mainly down the aforementioned canals.

Market Drayton is the home of gingerbread and Muller yoghurt

Birmingham may have more canals than Venice but Buxworth (just down the road from me) has the only survivng tram/canal interchange in the UK therefore it beats Birmingham (in just about every way possible TBH…)

Pronouced Bugsworth by the locals crazy-legs.

Stockport- famous for the ‘Christie hat works’, where the saying ‘mad as hatters’ came from, as producing the bowlers and top hats mean’t using mercury.

The famous Cheshire square mile, containing, Wilmslow, Prestbury and Alderley Edge, have more millionaires than anywhere else in Britain. Also the local wine shop in Alderley Edge villiage sells more champagne than any other shop in Britain.

I agree Crazy-legs, but i’m betting we have the edge on Buxworth in the smackhead/horse smoker stakes. They’re everywhere. But mainly down the aforementioned canals.

Spelt Buxworth, pronounced Bugsworth.
And yes, Birmingham beats it in the drug addict stakes.

God, i’m so proud.

Barry is famous for a few things, apart from Gavin and Stacey being set and partly filmed here, also a few episodes of Dr Who part filmed.
Bob Hope was born in Barry.
Also many of the steam engines which were rescued to be restored were from Woodham Brothers scrapyard, which is where my house is built on.
oooh I could go on……

Newton-Le-Willows is famous for many things English Civil War and railway related. However our most famous son is… RICK ASTLEY!!!

I think we can close the thread right now.

With an estimated total of over two million trees, Sheffield has more trees per person than any other city in Europe: 61% of the city is greenspace

Dunoon is home to the worlds largest highland gathering, the Cowal Games.

You’d better like bagpipes to live here!

Celebrated rabbit breeder Mary Tofts lived in a town just down the road from me.

And in case you think what – clicky link is worth a read….

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Tofts

I think she was a mentler…..

Prestwick is the only place in our isles where Mr Elvis A. Pressley set foot.

The famous Cheshire square mile, containing, Wilmslow, Prestbury and Alderley Edge, have more millionaires than anywhere else in Britain.
per square mile perhaps. Per head – it’s Woldingham.

also a few episodes of Dr Who part filmed.

Hmph, well that’s not gonna impress someone from Cardiff 🙂

Our village is inhabited by the most evil woman to ever walk the earth, who’s withholding my conjugal rights from me just because it’s taken me three years to put up a greenhouse.

The village is also famous for its plum trees. Plowmans is the local variety. Makes good jam. The crop failed last autumn.

Ray Mears is from croydon.

East croydon train station had the most reported mugging over the rail network

charles darwin lived asbout 5 mins away from my house

Balham SW London

…Balham has been settled since Saxon times, and is named after a farm that once covered the area.

…there has been a Sainsbury’s in Balham since 1888

… Sarah Beeny – presenter of Channel 4’s Propoerty ladder lives in Balham

…One of the first theatres to show only films was the Balham Empire , launched as a Pathé exclusive house in 1907.

Turin Brakes are a little duo with a big BIG future ahead of them they were nominated for a Mercury Music Prize 2001 and they are from yep… you guessed it! BALHAM….Olly Knights and Gale Paradganian first began making music together a local church choir in Balham when they were eight.

JIMMY HILL (the chin!) was born in Balham. Clubs: Reading (amateur), Brentford, Fulham Coventry City Manager 1961-66 Former Fulham Chairman Chairman PFA 1957-61