Someone told me that, before I left the UK for Vancouver I should take some photos of the grottiest, nastiest, places around and whip them out if I ever became a bit homesick or nostalgic for dear old Blighty. I never got around to it – the choice was just too overwhelming – but I’ve since discovered that, when I find myself pining for the comforts of the familiar the same effect can be achieved simply by browsing the web version of my old local paper.

Now I don’t want this post to simply become and exercise in slagging off my old stomping ground – because it does have a lot of good things going for it and I feel pretty confident you could read the same litany of petty thievery, anti-social behaviour, random unnecessary violence and downright stupidity in any local rag throughout the UK – but I would say, without naming names, this particular fish wrapper perhaps serves as a particularly fine example.

The other thing I should point out at this stage is that local media, as well as reporting the news, also have a remit which requires them to try and promote the area in a good light. I believe this is a much more prominent requirement in news media – so for example if your locality underwent an orgy of completely unrelated violence last night and every night for the last six weeks, you would find this kind of news despite how shocking would very soon get pushed to the side in favour of the local cheese rolling inbred-fest or some old dear who’s making a life-size model of Daniel O’Donnell out of nothing more than paper towels and her own drool. This helps give the impression to out-of-towers you’re little region is a hotpot of quirky community spirit and quaint old values rather as opposed to the ASBO filled Bosch painting it really is.

I add this in because if you want to carry out this exercise yourself you might need to dig around a bit, past the local sports teams latest heroic thrashing and Tiffany-McKenzie-Rose’s wedding joy to get to the real picture.

Here’s a perfect nugget of homesickness relief from the latest issue:

” Prom night attack
POLICE were called out twice to near ******* College on the night of its student prom.
A 17-year-old student was attacked with a golf club near the college in one incident at 11pm on Friday May 23.
His attacker struck him from behind with a golf club twice before kicking and punching him as he lay on the ground.”

First mistake is having the phrase ‘golf club’ in consecutive sentences. Second mistake here is having a Prom in the first place. This is Yorkshire, not Dawson’s bloody Creek for Gods sakes. But the other thing that strikes me about this nonsense, which wouldn’t be apparent to most, is that I know the College in question is right next to a golf club. So I wonder whether the same thing would have happened if it had been the local badminton club instead – maybe he’d have just been wrapped in the net and hit with shuttlecocks suffering slight bruising and mild humiliation? Or If the college was built next to the Chinese Community Centre would his assailant simply have pelted the poor guy with Mah Jong tiles instead? Makes you wonder.

Further perusal of this edition also reveals no less than four separate incidences of criminal behavior committed by different players from the local rugby league team – which I notice also has prominent sponsorship from a local group of lawyers, no coincidence surely? Based on this papers evidence am sure if you analyzed the regions crime figures they’d be taking a massive dip every Saturday afternoon between 3 and 5 when CarpertCarriers* RFC are beating the shit out of each other rather than innocent members of the public.

And there’s plenty more besides – you know the kind of thing, assaults on pensioners, savage dog attacks, council corruption, machete wielding crack addicts and so on. And yes I know it only really paints one side of the picture but it’s a nice counterbalance to any misty eyed reminiscences of the homeland I might succumb to. And then I can return again to Vancouver reporting, where the focus is on gangland slayings drugs, the Olympics and sea life or ideally a combination of the three eg “Orca Whale shot dead by gang member high on Crystal Meth: Will Olympics be affected?” – you know proper news.

*Carpet Carrier – term used for oversize, usually rugby playing male, who through a combination of steroids and overly tight designer t-shirt wearing, can no longer rest arms by side and instead walks around like they are carrying two large invisible carpets