West Virginia is my pride and joy

I'm currently in the city of Derby. I use the word city pretty loosely. I've been to abandoned mining towns that are more lively. (It's this whole Cathedral business. If you put a Cathedral up next to an outhouse in the middle of endless tundra, the Queen would declare it a city) I walked the main road from end to end last night, and didn't see a single soul on the streets for the entire journey. It was downright eerie. I finally saw two punters in a Walkabout and, afraid I might have missed the Tsunami warning siren or something, I went in to see what was going on. I ordered a beer and a steak salad.

"So, ah, what do folks do in Derby, come a Wednesday night?"

"Come in here, generally."

"Where is everyone, then?"

He gestured to the two old men sucking their teeth at each other at the bar.

"There might be dancing later."

I consumed my salad with unhealthy speed and got out as quickly as possible. I then proceeded to get lost in Derby. I'm not entirely sure how I did this. My hotel was on the main road, the train station was on the main road, all the pubs were on the main road, and there really wasn't anything in the entire town other than the main road (which was amusingly called 'Orgasmaton Road'). Nonetheless I soon found myself on roads which were anything but main, desperately trying to find my way back to the main road.

At one point I found a dairy [convenience store] and went in to get directions.

"Hi, could you point me towards the train station?"

"No."

"Do you know where it is?"

"Ah... no."

How can citizens of the town not know where the train station is? There's only one road, and there's only four things on it. I guess if they knew where the station was, they wouldn't be here to ask where it was.

I hope I don't sound like an elitist Londoner complaining that there's nothing interesting outside of London. However after painstaking investigation I've concluded that there really is nothing interesting outside of London.