BY JENNY SPIRES

So, who are these townies us exurbanites like to make fun of? What do we mean when we talk of townies? Well, I have examined fora and chatrooms, read articles and blog posts, and what follows is a summary of what I dug up.

In short, I discovered that Townies are of two classes – the lower and middle – as the upper has a country pad they can escape to. Both the lower towny and the middle towny are troubled creatures but the lower towny seems happier than the middle towny. Middle townies seem to spend their existences worrying about things that are really not that important, or worth worrying about at all – like the latest Farrow and Ball paint and others’ period poverty.

Here are the best definitions of both genre of townies I could find:

The Lower Towny

A curiosity particular to the British Isles, although derived chiefly from the gangsta rap culture of the inner cities of America, lower class townies are often seen in, as the name suggests, the town centre of any settlement, walking with a distinct bobbing movement akin to that of someone wearing a very heavy backpack. They tend to clothe themselves in unnecessarily large olive-green parkas, tracksuits and plastic baseball caps. This is not dissimilar to a peacock’s plumage, with the notable distinction that the peacock’s tail feathers are a thing of beauty and make the male bird more attractive to the opposite sex.

They look pale and ill.

On the subject of the opposite sex, it is often possible to observe the phenomenon of the “girl towny”. This female variety is not dissimilar to the male variety, except that even more white clothing is worn, in stark contrast to the often-orange war-paint worn caked over the faces of female townies. This serves to obliterate the features of the “girl townies” – covering acne caused by chewing one too many Maoam Bloxx Chews from the pound shop – and cleverly hide the fact that the male and female of the species are almost indistinguishable without aids to appearance.

Interpersonal relationships among their own groups are often primitive, centred around cheap sexual conquests, foul-tasting cider and who is going to “batter” who. The two are often linked.

The activities displayed by townies often serve to demonstrate a deep-seated aggression, often causing behaviour associated with extreme aggressiveness and violence. This includes a tendency to veer towards a non-towny in the street and “start on” them, at the same time accusing the aforementioned non-towny of doing the same to them. This is often accompanied by swearing, usually “Come on then, you f****** c****!” or similar aggressive twaddle, interspersed with Americanisms or Jamaican patter picked up on the chav grapevine.

A lower-class townie is a person whom spends most of their free time hanging around outside the local MacDonald’s. The male specimen often wears fake Adidas goods, mainly tracksuits. However, they are incapable of running – due to the horrendous daily intake of tobacco and car fumes.

Both sexes of townies wear fake gold jewellery bought from the market or stolen from other fellow townies. The female specimens usually have bleach blonde hair with about 2 inches of deep brown hair above. They too sport tracksuits, having words such as ‘BABE’ and ‘PRINCESS’ displayed across their chests. The females also spend all their time “hangin wit der homies” and attempting to pull an ugly male townie with whom they can copulate after enough cider and later get a free council flat.

If you are unfortunate enough to see a group of lower-class townies, you will see several young children running around, also smoking and trying to thieve off of you. This happens because a townie is very unfamiliar with contraception, and as a result has at least 2 spouses by the time they are 15. They also may carry several STD’s as yet another result of lack of contraception.

The Middle Towny

The Middle Towny knows what’s best for the lower class towny and for all rural dwellers. They are the personification of the act of performing coitus on another person, with or without their consent, because they feel it would be good for them and better for you. Arrogant was a word designed for these know-it-alls, who are happy to pay ever-increasing prices for houses the size of one’s country drawing room and to drive around in cars that are no bigger than one’s garden tractor.

The Middle Towny can be easily conned into becoming a socialist as that political outlook makes them feel better about passing lower townies on the street and having a cleaning lady from a war zone. This guilt complex makes being a member of the undemocratic EUSSR passable and all rural dwellers are gammon and racist, as they do not have to mix with the inconvenient consequences of socialist policies now overcrowding tube trains and buses.

The Middle Towny is – in short – a hypocrite. They are anti fox hunting but happy to call in pest control at the council when hundreds of foxes take over their street. They promote a green lifestyle but nip from Starbucks to Costa like bees to flowers and burn off meals for one in their microwaves as if tomorrow will never come. They blame greenhouse gases on rural cow farts but keep Primark in business by wearing their throwaway t-shirts and smalls.

The Middle Towny prepares for trips to the countryside by slapping on factor 50, packing Dettol wipes and spraying Jungle Juice. They prefer to travel to other towns like Paris and Dusseldorf on fuel-burning EasyJet rather than brave the Yorkshire Moors or Dartmoor where they might tread in pony poo.

The Middle Towny is somebody who pretends to have admirable principles, beliefs, or feelings but behaves otherwise. They expect the rest of the world to live up to their standards but don’t feel obliged to do the same. They condemn others’ actions then turn around and conduct themselves in the same manner. This self-flagellating hypocrisy leads to a guilt complex which can only be managed by voting in the likes of Sadiq Khan every now and again, as a panacea to ancestors’ slave trading and great grandmother’s employment of a punkhawallah.

The Middle Towny can be excessively and annoyingly pretentious, with a strong likelihood of working in the creative industries, especially “new media”. Very high populations of the most pretentious Townies are to be found in certain areas of London including Shoreditch and Hoxton. Usually a new media, fashion student, photographer-type person with a privileged digital or old school arts background, they are defined by their Hoxton Finn haircut, 80s retro 90s fusion clothes (usually a suit jacket, blue ripped jeans, and white trainers/shoes) and an ability to talk about pseudo-intellectual artistic nonsense with no relevance to the real world. They are completely up their own backsides, and a failure to comprehend that they are the laughingstock of the rest of the normal local (ethnic) population.

The Middle Towny thinks they rule the world. Actually, those that rule the world are the upper class townies with a flat in Belgravia or Pimlico and a country retreat.

Guest Writer Jenny Spires is a Farmer from a village near Frome.