Always be a Town in my Eyes

So the football team is no longer a misnomer, it now is Chelmsford City.

Whoop.

But hang on a minute, something doesn't sit quite right. Doesn't this increase in the number of cities there are devalue city status, more than it bigs up bland, suburban nowhereville?

Chelmsford, like Preston before it, is a town. No two ways about it. It's a medium-sized market town with a small, ill-equipped centre, acting as a commuter base for a nearby metropolis. That's not something to be celebrated. It's like putting an ornamental nameplate on a garden shed, it just serves to make ornamental name plates seem tacky.

Pleasant? Yes. Safe? Yes. Somewhere you would want to raise a family? Undoubtedly. A City? Nope. Not a chance. I appreciate that Chelmsford is marginally more city-esque than some of the other "cities", St Asaph and St David's spring to mind, but that doesn't justify anything, except maybe that we've already got too many cities. If I had my way I would reduce it to a manageable number - ten maybe - and only include cities that are actually cities: big urban areas where things happen.

Obviously if you're not from Chelmsford and try to say it doesn't deserve city status then you are categorically wrong, it does - it's got a Cathedral,a Crown Court, a Prison, a University and a whole heap of history - but it's my prerogative to slate my hometown. Illogical, but fact. So there.

Till the End

Lately I've been getting annoyed with till receipts. I just seem to end up with so many of them balled up in coat pockets / tucked inside my wallet. Surely in an increasingly green world there is no need for a small piece of paper to exist saying that when I bought a pint of milk I received 6p change. It's littering my person.

Speaking of littering. Virgin Media seem to be doing their best to litter inside of my house, they seem to send me at least one offer of cable tv a month, normally more. Not sure how many they need to send before it counts as fly-tipping or harassment. I'm going to do my best never to buy another Virgin product.

In other news, I went to the theatre last night - Bingo with Professor X. Didn't really get the play, it was a bit too, erm, cerebral for me (given how excited I am about the Hunger Games at the moment, that's not saying much - incidentally, did you read Gary Ross's splendid denial of how much HG is like Battle Royale? Quote "I promise you, the main character in Battle Royale didn't end up in a revolution and become a Joan of Arc leading an uprising." I'm not sure I like how casually this man breaks his promises). Highlight for definite was the older lady in front of me falling asleep then waking herself up by projectile vomiting on the row in front. The chunky arc looked beautiful in the theatrical lighting.