Sheffield

For those without comedic tastes, the so-called experts at Wikipedia have an article about Sheffield.

Sheffield is a city in the south of t'North, famous for not making steel anymore. After earning the position of "where Margaret Thatcher goes to have a shit" in the 1980's, the city has since evolved into a site of industrial decay and rubble. The inevitable depression that comes as a result of living in Sheffield is made slightly more bearable for its 500,000 residents by the fact that every few years, one of them (whether it be Jarvis Cocker, Arctic Monkeys or Jessica Ennis) seems to become the short-lived feature of pop culture hysteria.

History[edit | edit source]

Sheffield has existed in some form or another since the last ice age, when defrosting glaciers revealed seven dingy hills, a tram system, two football pitches, a pair of concrete cooling towers, Henderson's relish and a humanoid creature that would later become Sean Bean. The city remained uninhabited for six millenia whilst local tribes rehearsed their roles in the upcoming film "'T Full Monty", a tale of nudity in a sea of concrete.

Whilst waiting for dis moment to arrive, Abbot Dave of 't bloody Manor established a monastery at Beauchief in 1286 and commanded everyone to pronounce it as "Beecheef" since the French way sounded "much too poncey". Disappointed by a lack of implements with which to cut their food, 't monks invented cutlery by attaching a sharp bid of metal to a handle and naming it as a "knife". Soon a thriving cutlery industry sprang up in the moist valleys of Sheffield, where the local abundance of tough, stupid people provided the ideal workforce for the brutal factory conditions necessary for keeping tough, stupid people occupied.

Cutlery production reached such an excessive level that local residents were, at one point, forced to eat melted stainless steel. This problem was solved by dumping surplus cutlery engraved with the city's name into the North sea, unintentionally earning Sheffield the reputation as a famous exporter of such goods as they beached in foreign lands. This humiliation became too much for many Sheffielders, who decided to emigrate to the New World, also known as Barnsley. One such migrant was Joe Cocker, a man famous for his rough singing voice and large collection of Spaniels. His sons James and Jeremy turned out to be idle, talentless sons-of-bitches, but Jarvis inherited the singing talent and the girlish mannerisms.

A century later in 1562, whilst Jarvis was still alive, David Blunkett OBE seized control of Sheffield in a violent coup, armed with eleven Golden Retrievers. Thus was established the legendary Socialist Republic of Sheffield, where all citizens were employed as worker bees in the infamous Labour Exchange at the bottom of the Moor, a sloping pedestrian street paved with heather and drunks. As local enthusiasm for socialism waned, a new hero was born in the form of Michael Palin who raised a famous hobbit army and Python Circus.

In 1984 Sheffield was obliterated by several mega tonnes of nuclear explosives. The current city is limited to the 1/362th of the city not destroyed in what has been dubbed by locals as 't bloody nuclear holocaust, which produced thousands of radioactive students that litter the city to this day.

Today, Sheffield is inhabited by a mixture of unemployed factory workers, unemployed children of factory workers, unemployed grandchildren of factory workers (they breed at an early age here), confused university students, Muslims, Polish and Neil Kinnock's bastard child.

Geography[edit | edit source]

As a result of some historical planning fuckup, Sheffield is built on seven hills, making transport, construction and cycling about as awkward as explaining Jimmy Savile's sex crimes to an oblivious old person. Another geographical phenomenon in the city is the annual flood, which lasts the entirety of the summer, and gives the council an excuse to not clean the streets in the autumn and winter months.

Sheffield Forum[edit | edit source]

“Without Sheffield Forum, I would not be the man I am today ”

~ Peter Sutcliffe in conversation with Fred Dineage, on Meridian Tonight, 20th October 2008

Not many other cities have a large web forum where people can join and discuss issues relevant to the local area. Unfortunately, Sheffield does, and Sheffield Forum is the name of this entity. It is usually inhabited by people with no lives, and anyone with over 4,000 posts are real life wasters and spend their days here as they have no friends to speak of. Not real friends, anyway.

The site is run by a bloke called Geoff. Nobody seems to know his surname: Geoff Boycott, being from Yorkshire himself, has refused to comment on speculation. Moderators on the site include (but not limited to) the Führer, Pol Pot, Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro and all members of the current government of Turkmenistan. These moderator generally rule with an iron fist, deleting any comments they personally don't agree with (if they break the House Rules or not), without giving any explanations for doing so.

Regular topics and phenomena include:

• Cyclists jumping red lights
• Old people falling through windows and/or smelling
• Buses (cleanliness, poor routes, high fares, seat allocation or just plain lack of buses to moan about because they are late)
• Reports of the Google Street View car,
• Motorbikers in woods, specifically in an area of Sheffield known locally as High Green, which in 1989 attempted to attach itself to Barnsley, but without success
• The "I'm not a racist.......but... " thread.
• Panic over the non-existent threat of Swine Flu
• Lively debate over the merits of two organisations masquerading as football teams, who ply their trade in the second tier of said organisational structure.
• Sightings of UFO's that turn out to be Chinese lanterns,
• Sightings of Chinese lantern's that turn out to be UFOs,
• The "What was/is that loud bang/siren/screaming" (delete as appropriate) noise in suburb X at time Y thread,
• Enquiries into the activities of the emergency services ("What are the police doing on X Street?"), as well as the flight patterns of the police helicopter.
• Moans about children and their activities
• Requests for (gay friendly) drag bars.
• How do I get a bus from X to Y (ignoring the many other sites on the Net devoted to such information)
• "Why can't I post an ad?!". Even though it tells the user they need 5 posts first.
• The blatant promoting of businesses by first time posters.
• The purchasing of greyhounds

Tourist attractions[edit | edit source]

• The Peter Sutcliffe Tour
• Derelict industrial buildings
• Riots at the immigration centre at Millsands
• Wilkos 'n' Co-Op and the yokels who call Castle Market home.
• Conduit Road (it's very steep!)
• The freaky old woman who hangs around the library
• Hills. It's very hilly. Seven hills, apparently.
• The Moor - a 21st century concrete shopping centre
• The big pile of rubble where The Moor used to be
• The red light district behind the Shell garage. Many a prostitute has been led to her doom here.
• Meadowhell
• Sheffield University Arts Tower. The third-tallest building in Western Europe. Now covered by paper.
• Hallam University. Where all the people who were too thick to go to the real University go.
• Ecclesall Road. Hip student area, a quick 2 minute cycle ride or 90 minute bus ride from the city centre. Also where all the pretty girls get off the bus, much to the chagrin of middle aged blokes who live in Dore.
• The 'Hole In The Road' - to be found on most Sheffield streets.
• The worlds largest zoo: The Manor (recently awarded £3 million funding to concrete in the place)
• Park hill flats: the most depressing place to live ever.