DePreston

  I've woken up in some pretty grim places before, sofas in dodgy flats, in my own chunder, dribble and pish, in kids play-parks, small villages in the Home Counties, once in field in France just north of Le Mans and in train stations up and down the UK but none, without exception, grimmer than this.
  For today (9.9.10), the Caledonian Sleeper I jumped on in Westerton on my way from Glasgow to Leeds, has dropped me off at happast four in the morn' in Preston, Lancs.
  This isn't a negative review of the Sleeper or of it's staff, they were kind, charitable and all in all, went out of their way to give me the beautifully comfortable bed they did. I of course thought I'd pay them the favour back by cleaning the room... Out of pretty much anything that wasn't nailed down.

  "Why", I hear you cry, "are you in Preston at half four in the morning on a Thursday Richard?", well, I've just spent Sunday to Wednesday in the fabulous Glasvegas with Joe and Rachel seeing unis and I'm on my way to Leeds to on the same. I'm resitting my AS levels but I need some inspiration to, well, to not sit on my arse for another nine months, pretty much. I'm looking at Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at University of Leeds.

  It's also a right jolly to get free biros.
  So I'm on platform 1b in Preston station scribbling this on paper to blog it later, I did go outside but it dePrestoned me (see what I did there?), I know its happast four but, howay, this is a large(ish) city in the north west! Two shopping centres, a taxi driver in a cowboy suit, charvers, fat people and a cat that looked to be doing a Great Escape style getaway from, I'd assume, the home of one of the above hardly screams "we're competing with Lancaster or Manchester" but rather, "have you seen Blackburn, Burnley and Chorley? We needn't bother standing up to say hello."
  But that's the issue here, towns like Preston are continuously overlooked because of this attitude and yet they could become a centre for something. Take Brighton and LGBT celebration, Scarborough and the goth scene, these places are no-longer over looked whereas the Prestons of this world are.
  Clearly, once upon a time, Preston had something, that's why it has this magnificent Victorian railway station but as that attraction buggared-off, whatever it was, so did all the people and their money.
  Coincidentally, they've unreasonably moved my train to Manchester Picadilly to platform 5, time I buggared-off too.
Tara. - Nous