Name: Slough.
Age: 1,000 years, give or take.
Appearance: Without grass to graze a cow.
Why are you talking funny? I’m not. That was John Betjeman talking funny, in his very famous poem, Slough.
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! That’s right. But apparently, it is fit for humans now.
Says who? Says worker satisfaction research conducted by the jobs site Glassdoor. By its reckoning, it is now the UK’s very best town to work in.
Hang on a minute. We’ve all seen The Office. Working in Slough means crushing tedium and insecure bosses with only brief interludes of sexual tension and witty bullying. The Office was never intended as a documentary about working in Slough. Besides, Slough has changed a lot since then.
Really? Absolutely. Most of The Office’s title sequence is now consigned to history. Brunel bus station and the Brunel Bridge roundabout – and indeed Crossbow House, which appears as the Wernham Hogg office itself – have been demolished.
Just demolished, or replaced with things? Replaced with things. According to the research, there are 26,387 jobs available in Slough, offering a median base salary of £35,000, in dynamic fields such as sales and recruitment consulting. Glassdoor gives it a score of 4.2 out of 5.
Meaning what? I neither know nor care. But it does mean that it’s time to take Slough seriously again.
I’m not sure I did to start with. Well, that’s just typical of the snobbery this thriving town has had to tolerate for 80 years since that wretched poem was written. It’s like Jane Austen battering Birmingham with, “I always say there is something direful in the sound.” And look what Ali G did to Staines.
What did he do? He dragged its reputation so deep through the mud that, in the end, the name was changed to Staines-upon-Thames.
That’ll fool people. Yeah. So just remember, Thunderbirds was filmed in Slough. It’s where the Mars bar was born. And the new Crossrail connection and the Slough Urban Renewal master plan will take it to even greater heights!
Do say: “You’ll find plenty of grass to graze a cow in Herschel park or Baylis memorial gardens.”
Don’t say: “It’s best to obtain permission from the local authority before leading livestock into the town centre.”
