This article first appeared at my mate Nic's site at www.sidcupmassive.co.uk, but since I wrote it in the first place I have no guilty feelings about stealing it back off him. Believe it or not, the facts in this little piece about my hometown are true.....
MOSTLY TRUE FACTS ABOUT SWANLEY!!!
1/ Swanley was named after the Anglo-Saxon for "Swine-herdsman's clearing." In keeping with the great heritage of the town, there still remains a place where pigs can safely congregate. It's called Deja Vu.
2/ Enough chunky "gold" jewellery and fake Reeboks are sold each week at the market to ensure the economic survival of at least three Chinese sweatshops for a whole year.
3/ Swanley likes to bolster it's reputation of being a little bit tasty in a fight by referring to itself as "the road-rage capital of England." This is despite the fact that half of the cars on the town's roads are actually burnt out, and the other half are simply speeding so they can quickly get through the one town in the entire south east that doesn't have it's own fucking MacDonalds. (No, the one by Ruxley Corner doesn't count)
4/ In the novel "Moonraker" by Ian Fleming, a chase scene featured legendary lothario James Bond driving down London Road in Swanley and heading on down to Farningham. However, movie producers didn't think that a film in which Roger Moore hung around in front of Asda, swore at some pensioners to prove he was hard, then impregnated his 15 year old girlfriend up the park while drunk on Tennants Super would be enough of an international box-office hit. So they put him on a space shuttle instead.
5/ Asda nearly managed to persuade the local council to rename Swanley as "Asdaville" due to the large amount of money and jobs that the supermarket has brought to the town. An unoffical spokesman that I just invented said that they were turned down on the grounds that it sounded "a bit shit" and that they might as well have renamed it "crappylittlepoundshopville" instead if Orpington hadn't been considering the idea itself.
6/ Despite at least three publishing houses having offices in Swanley, the appalling grafitti around town reveals that the vast majoity of Swanley boyz and girlz are unable to read or write at a perfunctory level. Ironically, staff-writers at Razzle often come down to Swanley to read the grafitti in the alley between Swanley School and the church to inspire themselves to write stories about how some working class kid called Joe "likked out Tina, 'koz she's a slagg."
7/ The market's jewellery stands also ensure the survival of many local chemists, who do a roaring trade in creams to assist the itching when a new necklace or braclet mysteriously turn patches of skin into a disturbing green colour.
8/ Defunct satirical programme, Spitting Image, once did a sketch about Swanley when the town was in the running to be the Channel Tunnel's international rail terminal. Chunnel chiefs quickly scrapped the idea, not as a result of the biting comedy, but because it was decided that not even the French deserved their first taste of England to be two fat pikeys glassing each other outside The Lully.
9/ During the infamous Poll Tax protests, The Sun mistakenly reported that there had been a late-night riot in Swanley. What they had failed to realise was that the pubs were kicking out at the time....
10/ Popular local belief is that it is illegal to have a conversation on St Mary's Road between 8.30 and 9.15 am unless (a) it is shouted, regardless of the other person's distance to you or (b) you and your fat, shellsuit wearing friend stand in such a way that the two of you block the whole fucking pavement and force fellow pedestrians to walk in the road instead.
11/ If you pass a man wearing a suit in Swanley, it is mandatory to adopt an approximate impression of an upper-class voice and repeatedly yell "Oh, yes, rather, what!" even if the next time you see him you'll either be asking if he wants more fries with that, or pleading not guilty.
12/ Rumour has it that Gavin Rossdale, of international rock band Bush, originally hails from this fine town. Evidance pointing to this fact is that, like half the blokes in Swanley, he is poking a peroxide blonde with an annoying voice (Gwen, from No Doubt). However, this rumour is clearly bollocks as Gavin has never felt the need to finish every other line of his songs with the word "innit."
MOSTLY TRUE FACTS ABOUT SWANLEY!!!
1/ Swanley was named after the Anglo-Saxon for "Swine-herdsman's clearing." In keeping with the great heritage of the town, there still remains a place where pigs can safely congregate. It's called Deja Vu.
2/ Enough chunky "gold" jewellery and fake Reeboks are sold each week at the market to ensure the economic survival of at least three Chinese sweatshops for a whole year.
3/ Swanley likes to bolster it's reputation of being a little bit tasty in a fight by referring to itself as "the road-rage capital of England." This is despite the fact that half of the cars on the town's roads are actually burnt out, and the other half are simply speeding so they can quickly get through the one town in the entire south east that doesn't have it's own fucking MacDonalds. (No, the one by Ruxley Corner doesn't count)
4/ In the novel "Moonraker" by Ian Fleming, a chase scene featured legendary lothario James Bond driving down London Road in Swanley and heading on down to Farningham. However, movie producers didn't think that a film in which Roger Moore hung around in front of Asda, swore at some pensioners to prove he was hard, then impregnated his 15 year old girlfriend up the park while drunk on Tennants Super would be enough of an international box-office hit. So they put him on a space shuttle instead.
5/ Asda nearly managed to persuade the local council to rename Swanley as "Asdaville" due to the large amount of money and jobs that the supermarket has brought to the town. An unoffical spokesman that I just invented said that they were turned down on the grounds that it sounded "a bit shit" and that they might as well have renamed it "crappylittlepoundshopville" instead if Orpington hadn't been considering the idea itself.
6/ Despite at least three publishing houses having offices in Swanley, the appalling grafitti around town reveals that the vast majoity of Swanley boyz and girlz are unable to read or write at a perfunctory level. Ironically, staff-writers at Razzle often come down to Swanley to read the grafitti in the alley between Swanley School and the church to inspire themselves to write stories about how some working class kid called Joe "likked out Tina, 'koz she's a slagg."
7/ The market's jewellery stands also ensure the survival of many local chemists, who do a roaring trade in creams to assist the itching when a new necklace or braclet mysteriously turn patches of skin into a disturbing green colour.
8/ Defunct satirical programme, Spitting Image, once did a sketch about Swanley when the town was in the running to be the Channel Tunnel's international rail terminal. Chunnel chiefs quickly scrapped the idea, not as a result of the biting comedy, but because it was decided that not even the French deserved their first taste of England to be two fat pikeys glassing each other outside The Lully.
9/ During the infamous Poll Tax protests, The Sun mistakenly reported that there had been a late-night riot in Swanley. What they had failed to realise was that the pubs were kicking out at the time....
10/ Popular local belief is that it is illegal to have a conversation on St Mary's Road between 8.30 and 9.15 am unless (a) it is shouted, regardless of the other person's distance to you or (b) you and your fat, shellsuit wearing friend stand in such a way that the two of you block the whole fucking pavement and force fellow pedestrians to walk in the road instead.
11/ If you pass a man wearing a suit in Swanley, it is mandatory to adopt an approximate impression of an upper-class voice and repeatedly yell "Oh, yes, rather, what!" even if the next time you see him you'll either be asking if he wants more fries with that, or pleading not guilty.
12/ Rumour has it that Gavin Rossdale, of international rock band Bush, originally hails from this fine town. Evidance pointing to this fact is that, like half the blokes in Swanley, he is poking a peroxide blonde with an annoying voice (Gwen, from No Doubt). However, this rumour is clearly bollocks as Gavin has never felt the need to finish every other line of his songs with the word "innit."
