The Honest Guide To Whitstable

- The honest guide to Whistable –

-I promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth-

Right, you’ve almost certainly been informed about the marvellous Whitstable and how great it is. It may have been a glossy magazine you have read or heard from somebody else but Whitstable is not the undisturbed, extraordinary historic city it is made out to be. This is my honest guide to Whitstable and it will tell you what really happens in Whitstable and what to avoid.

The miniscule town of Whitstable - a peaceful and historical place is an assortment of abnormal smells and a range of worldwide languages. Where every street you stroll down differs little from the last, and spat out chewing gum and cigarette butts tile the cobbles of the path. Take an expedition into Whitstable, and you will soon become aware that it is more or less identical to any other town in Kent – and quite possibly England.

The tranquil High Street is not to be missed. It is one of the most historic parts of Whitstable and you can tell this when you see it. All of the pocket-sized high-quality shops like butchers and bakeries etc. have been occupied by immense chain stores like Marks and Spencer and Tesco. You may now be thinking that Whitstable cannot just have two shops, well it doesn’t. Whitstable has an unnecessary quantity of charity shops, and the high street is just jam-packed with coffee shops and restaurants, many of which haven’t had a customer since they opened. And I haven’t even mentioned the phenomenal kebab houses which are like no other kebab shop in Kent. There menu has been added to so many times there isn’t a lot that they don’t sell, from pizzas to burgers to chicken pots. Kebab houses try so hard to try and get a customer, they publish a daily leaflet which is posted through your door and straight into the shredder, well it is in our house. The shops believe that the leaflets attract more customers but it probably does the opposite as most people don’t read them as you get five a day.

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The shops in Whitstable as if they are on a cycle which includes; opening the shop then sell the stock, then have a closing down sale, and finally close, then get boarded up. The cycle is repeated every year and is abnormal as a shop in Whitstable doesn’t last as long as they should. Whitstable is famously known for Whitefriars, and if you don’t know what this is, I will tell you it is a shopping centre which is home to a countless amount of security guards; teenagers who buy with a method called five finger discount which is also known as stealing; and the elderly who toddle looking to see if a shop has finally got some new stock. Sight-seers come from every corner of the world to visit Whitstable’s elegantly boarded over shops, and what some might describe imaginative graffiti decorated everywhere where your eyes take you.

Whitstable is famously known for its world heritage sites. To start with the remains of Whitstable Cathedral which is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England, and finally St Augustine's Abbey, and St Martin's Church. All of these attract millions of tourists to Whitstable and the tourists always seem to know whether you are in a hurry or not because they will stroll tremendously slowly in front of you preventing you from accomplishing the tasks you want to. Whitstable is also well-known for the run down Dane John Gardens which hosts an incredible number of fights and drug addicts. Even though the garden hosts these battles and junkies, many families take an outing to the gardens to have a picnic. Whitstable City Council has attempted to stop fights and stop drug addicts using the gardens and to try and improve the gardens for families. But they have failed on every one of their methods. They have built a maze which small children would love except it is used by the homeless for shelter and is decorated with magnificent graffiti.

Whitstable is also renowned for its spectacular leisure facilities. It has a splendid leisure centre which is the ideal place for exercising. The puddle that is used as the pool has several lifeguards on one shift. This sounds good but the lifeguards do not observe the pool to ensure if the lifeless swimmers are in danger as an alternative they stand around the pool chatting among them and drinking bottles of drink. The changing rooms, well, if mature plasters and chewing gum carefully displayed from corner to corner of the floor is up-your-street then the grotesquely filthy swimming pool is first on your itinerary. Whitstable has an astonishing entertainment choice. You can choose from an aged cinema which once in a blue moon shows new films on their release date so you end up with previous films which you have probably already watched before five times. The seats are hardly ever cleaned between each showing so you take a seat which is surrounded by popcorn which stands like soldiers on a battlefield and discoloured with spillages of soft drinks. Or there is the highly attractive Planet Laser. This attracts many children who have great fun playing and shooting each other with lasers until you invite the chav’s (a lower class; uneducated and extremely ignorant person) who instead of using the gun as a laser they use it as a club. And the rules - Is there one rule that they obey? The answer is no.

Wednesdays and Fridays are usually the highlights of the week, the marketplace selling the same motionless flowers from last week, decomposing produce from ‘local’ fields, and what the seller advertises as new clothes, but if you accept that as true then I consider you a fool. The market attracts all age groups from toddlers who scuttle wildly and shriek to their mother declaring that they want a certain item to the elderly who hobble as leisurely as they could, getting right under your nose. And the teenagers who rummage around for what they believe is a good deal with their restricted change. Others wander the High Street as they have nothing better to do in their life which usually involves lying on the sofa watching day time TV and occasionally a few minutes of being confronted with daylight. By early evening debris is left scattered as the stalls are dismantled and Serco (Whitstable’s local council) are sent out two-by-two to decontaminate the high street.

The climate in Whitstable seems to deliberately depend on your itinerary for the daylight hours. The weather forecasts may as well tell you the truth and not what the weather is expected to be. The weather is never sunny on a school day and when it rains you leave slightly later in hope that the rain will come to a halt and it doesn’t so you end up with no other option but to stroll up the road in torrential rain and gale force winds to see the bus pull away from the Kurb. So, you’re left there standing on your own with the pleasant traditional weather conditions of Whitstable awaiting the arrival of the next bus – whose driver is almost certainly still in the bus station having a coffee and a smoke.

Now you have read this you may be wondering whether it was a waste of your time, well it wasn’t. You could have come to visit Whitstable. Now that would be a waste of your time.

Now remember I did warn you.