by Councillors in the Surrey town of Staines, home to Sacha Baron Cohen’s comic character Ali G, are to counter the public’s negative perception of the town by changing its name to Shithole-on-Thames.
Local business leaders said that adding ‘on-Thames’ to any old shithole makes a town instantly more attractive to investors, arguing that Shithole-on-Thames could also become a tourist hotspot.
Alex Tribbick of the local Business Forum explained, “It might only be a small change, but becoming Shithole-on-Thames gives us the potential to be the type of shithole that other shitholes look up to – we can be a shining light to shitholes everywhere.”
Residents have already asked if there will be any actual changes to the town, but have so far received few guarantees.
Mike Sheen, 37, told us, “I like the sound of living in Shithole-on-Thames, but surely every sane person will know it’s just the exact same shithole, but with on-Thames at the end?”
Staines Name Change
The move is likely to go through a public consultation phase before the name change takes place, but many are backing the plan which would see the towns motto change from, “not as bad as Slough”, to “we’re actually on a river you know”.
Tribbick continued, “Few people even know where our shithole is, so this change would at least allow people to point to our shithole on a map.”
“Like I told the council, you might not be able to polish a turd, but you can make it seem a little less turd-like by renaming it Turd-on-Thames.”
