Tense, Nervous A to Z-ache

Don’t bother looking for the most boring place in Greater Bristol. I’ve found it for you.
It’s grid reference B4 on page 88 of the Bristol and Bath A-Z (2003 edition).
According to the map the square of land, just outside of Stockwood, is almost completely blank. Ok, so Bifield Close, where Stockwood seems to run out of stock and, indeed wood, edges minutely over the B3 border. A couple of thin black lines venture inside the box, but they break off, despondently. What they happen to indicate, the map symbol reference table helpfully omits to mention.
Perhaps it’s the trail of someone who once strayed into the grid and then thought better of it. Either way, it’s a fair guess B3 88 is a part of the Greater Bristol region you can avoid visiting and never once have the slightest niggle that you might have missed something.
Possibly out of pity for this expanse of ennui, the A-Z folk have printed BS14 in the middle.
This might be in case you want to write a letter to it.
Perhaps something along the lines of:
“Dear B3,
anything happened yet?
Any idea what those black lines are.
Me neither.
Or the A-Z.
Love etc. xxx”.
Some might argue that neighbouring nothing spot B4 88 could also rank as Bristol’s most boring square quarter mile.
But look closer and you’ll see that B4 88 has a footpath running through it.
These are the marks of civilisation, B4 88 is the hanging gardens of Babylon and grand central station combined, compared to lonely primordial B3 88, with no one to visit it and no one able to find a route across even if they wanted too.
And I don’t want to.
Thanks A-Z.
I only wish the pocket sized maps could be used to indicate other spots to see or avoid in the city.
Like, say, a yellow un-smiley face over the Bear Pit (1A 68), “£££” over Sneyd Park (3F 55) and an icon of a rabid looking squirrel swinging a big stick over Brandon Hill (D3 67).
The A-Z could go further still and print helpful comments on the map like:
“Park Street, big hill, all the good shops replaced by generic bars”.
Or, “Canygne Square, Clifton: If you have to look it up you can’t afford to live here”.
With this in mind I’ve recently started to research the rudest, most impolite areas of Bristol, mainly to find something else to moan about at work. But I think it could be a valuable addition to the service already provided by the A-Z.
It’s a tricky task though, because, of course, Bristol is one of the rudest cities in the country - worse than Stoke where they at least have a good excuse to be bad tempered.
Although we shouldn’t be, we’re really rather proud of the fact that Bristol has taken impoliteness and turned it into a mission statement.
For example, Real Bristolians - by that I mean those citizens born in Southmead (A3 42) or St Michael’s (E1 67) (or St Brenda’s - 2C 66- if you’re over 30) - like nothing better than to boast of the city as a welcome port and sneer behind the backs of incomers with dreadful estuary accents (the people who actually run the city).
In general the city’s drivers are becoming too eager to mirror London car uses when it comes to driving badly, honking horns and shouting at cyclists, who mount the pavements and shout at pedestrians.
Good service in shops and bars citywide is a lottery at the best of times. And, is it just me or have you noticed how everybody in Bristol swears all the time, too. I heard a middle age man the other day describe his lunch to his wife thus: “This ******* pasty is ******* lush, mind.” She replied, “******* lovely.” They were pensioners practically. What’s going on?
Actually, thinking back on it, it was pretty ******** funny.
But finding the worst concentration of discourteous behaviour in an inch and a bit square is hard, so widespread is the rejection of day to day politeness.
It may take more research but for now I can say that may findings don’t look favourably on F2 67 and E3 67 where Haymarket bleeds into St Augustine’s parade and then the Centre.
In the past few weeks I’ve witnessed and been party to dozens of incidents of low level rudeness. I’ll mannered children mealy mouthing off at their mothers, beggars harassing passers by, people emptying their car ashtrays into the gutter, drunks urinating against walls, cyclists bombing down the pavements.
I caught a bus from here yesterday. It was packed but I notice that one seat at the back is partly unoccupied. I go to sit down. The lone occupant of the seat, a student, has placed his rucksack on the empty place. I have to ask him to move it. With great huffing, tutting and general petulance he moves his bag to allow me to be seated.
At the next stop nearly everyone on the bus gets off. There is now ample opportunity for me to move to a seat of my own. But now I want to make a petty and useless point to the student - the worst kind, too, jeans AND brogues - about seats being for paying passengers, not designer backpacks. And when he wants to get off at College Green I have to get up, and I sigh, barely audibly, under my breath.
There’s something about those two squares on the grid that’s infectious.
Maybe I’m too sensitive to cope any longer with the brash hurly burly of city life. I long to get through the day without incurring the brief wrath of complete strangers. Sometimes I long to escape to where nothing happens.
Thanks to the A-Z, I know just the spot.