ninme

Telegraph - Watch out, or we’ll all be living in Slough, by Dan Kieran

Poor old Slough. This feels like kicking a dead dog but my point is that Slough’s ‘success’ is precisely why it’s such an unattractive place to live. Something the marketing men who are no doubt being paid great fist-fulls of cash to rebrand Slough have no conception of at all. The problem with Slough is that it’s the town that work built, one of the many reasons why Ricky Gervaise’s Office was so inspired. The best places to live in Britain are the ones moulded by the values of life, not work. Ones that have evolved for living, not the modern ones increasingly designed simply for shopping.

Economically, Slough is the perfect modern town. This should strike fear into the hearts of everyone living in Britain. It is near an airport, the local economy is thriving and provides plenty of jobs for local people, it lies close to London and, at the same time, is also located near beautiful countryside. This is the British town that exemplifies the priorities of modern life. It’s town planning perfection.

Slough is a microcosm that tells you everything you need to know about the things our country prioritises, and yet everyone in Britain who has been there thinks it is a carbuncle on the face of the earth.

If we keep falling over ourselves to make Britain attractive to business, to make our workforce increasingly ‘productive’, to build airports making it easier and easier to leave, we may one day discover we’re all stuck in a place designed for work rather than one for life. By then no amount of re-branding will be able to alter what we’ll all be able to see with our own eyes. By then we’ll all be living in Slough.

ninme screams in horror