You know you're from Stockton-on-Tees when
1) When you visit a kebab shop outside the area and you try to order a Parmo.
2) They proudly boast "Englands widest high street" but has nothing in it!
3) When you add "Like" or "Do you know what I mean like" to the end of every sentence
4) Small chavvy teenagers blare sped up rave music out their crappy mobile phones outside McDonalds
5) Big Brother, when not harassing housemates, makes frequent booming commands down Wellington Square
6) You know someone who knows someone else who has met Roy Chubby Brown
***THIS HAS HAPPENED. Good God.***
7) The only people who represent us on the tv are those first round auditionees on the X Factor
***Bad Lashes, X Factor 2008***
8) When some little kid will get his fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, cousins, aunties, second cousin twice removed to do you in
9) Druggies bother you for 20p "to get home" or "phone home"
10) The dress code "smart casual" could also mean "tracksuit bottoms, nikes and burberry"
11) Zanzibar enforce "Challenge 14" on Friday nights
12) You walk down the street to see a fifteen year old pushing a pram with twins in... and the kids are hers!
13) "Quality", "Sound" and "Proper Mint" are part of your daily vocabulary
14) The special guest appearance at Zanzibar is someone that was on the first series of Fame Academy
15) The Riverside Festival allows us to see Polish people not only drive taxis, but do acrobatics as well! Amazing...
16) The doormen check your for ID, and strategically placed weaponry
17) Your neighbours are on the Jeremy Kyle Show
18) The most decorated area of the town centre is the homeless man next to Vodafone
19) You look up at the sky and see thick black SMOG!
20) The Mayor cleverly decided to fund some idiot to make a six foot match and stick it on a roundabout
21) The 59 is the only bus in service and covers every single area
22) You go to North Tees A&E on a friday/saturday night and know two people also waiting to be seen
23) The second you step one foot out of the north east you immediately become a geordie
24) You walk past your favourite shop only to find out its now a charity shop
25) Even Thornaby gets put higher than you in "Worst towns to live in"
26) You respond to a question negatively with "As If"
27) Our very own Jeremy Kyle is Gary Philipson on TFM (but only when hes angry!)
28) Our first line of defence WAS the little grey ship on the River Tees - RIP Kellington
29) People pay you to burgle their houses so they can claim compensation and move somewhere nicer.
30) The Shopmobility Scooters cut you off when you're shopping in Castlegate
31) Your neighbour tells you that they have just got an "emergency" Tax Credit payment, but want it in Euro's so that they can go and do a fag run
32) The University calls itself Durham and Student Accomodation is better than most supplied by Tristar
33) A big night out in Boro always leads you to Zanzibar by 12:30
34) You think that shopping trollies are wheeled all the way home
35) You "swear down dead"
36) You refer to a group of people as "You's"
37) You shop at "THE" Asda
38) The Bloke from Buy As You View arrived "Tooled Up"
39) Your Uncle, Dad or Grandad own an ICI Donkey Jacket, though they never worked there
40) You see something interesting going on in the High Street, wonder what you're missing out on and then realise its a queue outside of Greggs.
41) The closest thing to Dogging is the small alleyway behind where Mothercare used to be.
*** Smallest Dogging Site Ever? ***
42) EVERYTHING can be bought in Wilkinsons
43) All your shopping can be done by using the vouchers given by the CoinStar machine in "THE" Asda.
44) An ideal present is one of those giant fake gold doll necklaces whose legs and arms move
45) Your friends first choice for a name of her baby is Beyonce... ugh
46) At least someone you know has had a burst eardrum by one of them really loud excitable EVENING GAZZETTEEEEEEEEEEE sellers!!!!
47) You consider Debenhams a classy venue for lunch
48) You have your wedding reception at Leo's
49) ...or the Buffs
50) RAAAAAG BBOOOONEE screams through the high street
51) You hear boy racers on a mini moto racing over the speed bumps outside your house
52) When you're in the Queue at a shop and the person behind you is wearing pajamas and slippers
53) The closest you get to fame is you went to the same school with Mark Page (70's/80's DJ)
54) You know who Pat Wardell is
55) You could go to Fat Pat's and buy single cigarettes and tea bags
56) You're "proper chuffed"
57) You've heard of the local legend Sweaty Betty and her use of 50p to stop robbers!
58) 17 year old chavs ride bikes specifically built for 4 year olds
59) The girl in Zanzi is giving you "evils" because she thinks you're looking at her fella... you're not
60) The street you lived on when you were younger and played there nice and safe? That street is now boarded up and full of druggies
61) Your neighbour has an ASBO for playing that song by the Fast Food Rockers LOUD and on REPEAT
62) You owned a 'Mall Card'
63) Your favourite Chinese is shut down when they found Frozen Dogs.
64) When you're disappointed you tut and say "D'ya know"
65) When you hurt yourself and shout "ayazz!"
66) If you hurt yourself it 'knacks'
67) Your best mate gives you a croggie down to the beck
68) ASBO children go into your local newsagent and buy White Lightning
69) You get your head 'panned' in
70) A birthday banner reads "Happy 30th Nanna"
71) Shops have removed all the kids rides, cos the bairns!!all ride the three dogs outside marksies......
72) You know at least 1 person in 'The Scales Of Justice' or on 'Crime Stoppers'.
73) Someone buys you either a soverign ring or a 'MAM'. 'DAD', 'SISTER', 'DISTANTLY REMOVED RELATIVE' piece of 'jewellery'
74) you can still remember the phone in number for Radio Tees.................................606257!
75) You know of/or have witnessed somebody being twatted in the head by a kamikaze pigeon in Wellington Square.
76) Your mates mates mam has been on "10 Years Younger" and chosen to do her big "reveal" in Brads Bar
77).....when you know Darren Gordon is a 'grass' from the many graffiti signs around town, but you don't know who the f*ck Darren Gordon is
78) You can order the latest mobile phone from some geezer in your local, mind you, there's no box, charger or guarantee mate!
79) You buy all your jewellery and makeup from Leila's in the indoor market
80) A bank holiday monday is spent by the duck pond on Norton Green
81) Weatherspoons is 10 deep at the bar by 9am on Giro day
82) The bloke next to you in the post office queue is wearing his prison tag with pride
83) You go to a chippy out of the area and ask for scraps, and the woman serving you immediately rings the police
84) You call people meffs when it should be meths and dont even know what THAT means
85) Someone threatens to "deck" you
86) You came in after a night in the Mall and then watched the telly in the hope that you caught a glimpse of you and your mates behind Pete and Micheala on the Hit Man and Her.
87) When you look into a pram and the baby has a bottle of tea and is 'teething' on a greggs pastie!
88) When you're classed as 'dead hard' coz you live on Blue Hall, Hardwick or 'Raggie'
89) You have nothing left in your house to take to 'Cash Converters'
90) When you have to explain to anyone not from Stockton the difference between a fishcake and a pattie.
91) There's a secret cafe somewhere that only smack heads know about where you can get a cup of tea and a sandwich for 25p!
92) You know where Silver Street is and all the other streets offa the high street
93) Oh and when you say "Offa"!!!!!
94) When Hob Nob was a shop full of loads of hippy stuff and not a biscuit
95) You used to buy a bag of broken biscuits offa the market for 10p
96) The bloke that sells the Gazette next to Woolies looks exactly the same age as he did when the "skins" used to hang round there in the 80's
97) If someone tells you to meet them at the 'monkey tree' you know exactly where to go
98) When your planned school trip is to Castle Eden Walkway, Flamingoland, Shitewater Valley......or Beamish!
99) The previously mentioned trip is cut short due to the head of year finding bottles of MD 20/20 in someones packed lunch
100) When someone would "offer you out" if they wanted to "batter" you
101) You used to go to Black Cats/Park Avenue/Henri Africas
102) You or someone you know, lost their virginity in 'Bazzy' woods
103) You've done a runner from Fatso's or El Greco's
104) your kids refer to trousers that are too short as "budgies"
105) You could buy singles of Players No 6 from Bobs cafe at the end of Roseworth shops to take to Kiora Youth Club. Or if there was a special event at the youthie stand outside the Monkey Tree shop and bribe an adult to buy a bottle of woodpeckers to share between 10!
106) You remember Percy the fish man driving very slowly down your street in his van shouting anyyyyyyyyyy fiiiiiiiiiiish!!
106) People don't annoy you they "do your head in"
107) At age 15 you knew the difference between "going with" someone and "going out" with someone
108) Your idea of eating out is taking sandwiches made with left over sunday roast to Hardwick Club on a Sunday night, and eating after the bingo when the big lights are still on.
109) Baby Bentleys.......................need we say more!
110) 'The Shambles' is an accurate description of the market
111) You were posh if you 'sat in' Barnacles
112) You buy one transit tripper between 3 people and threw it from the top deck window to your mate below.
113) You believe a swan eating pike resides in Ropner Park pond
114) You refer to your mother as 'our mam', even when not talking to a sibling.
115) If Pat Wardell pierced your ears when you were 10
116) When no other ice cream compares to Pacitto's
117) When you know instantly who the black homeless man with the dreadlocks is; and you do a double take when you see him after his once-a-year haircut
118) You were in awe of the person who could climb up the steep leg of the "Spider" (Always Advancing my arse!) that used to be in Thornaby town centre.....the one thats on the roundabout now
119) ......and you'd spit on the ground to give you a better grip to get up it.
120) Only in Stockton can u decide whether your gonna park in the curly wurly
121) If you remember the perma-tan security guard in wollies with the grey hair following you all over the store.
122) If you once ate a 'Buster's breakfast'
123) You spent most of your Saturday looking at "the precious things" in Leslie Browns
124) You had a mis-spent childhood in John Street Pool Club
125) Long before the invention of the parmo you bought creamy cabbage from Andrews takeaway
126) You don't know what county you live in as it's definitely not County Durham, North Yorkshire and Teesside was disbanded in 1974
127) When you get a new three piece and a freezer from 'Crazy George's'
128) You remember when the Millenium bus was an old banger school bus and it only went once on a friday night at 10pm, so a hundred people piled ontop of each other to avoid payin the quid each in a taxi!
129) when BoJangles was THE place to be on a friday night!
130) you count the takeaway shops and realise that there are more of them than decent shops in the town centre!
131) when you get nostalgic when drinking in 'Che Bar' and remember when it used to be that damn fine toy shop Leslie Browns! gone but not forgotten
132) when you know such trivia as....On the night JFK was shot the Beatles were playing at the Globe in Stockton...which then became the ABC cinema...which then became a bingo hall....which then became....yeh boarded up...(at least it's not another takeaway!)
133) Your parents dragged you round the flea market.
134) When you go on holiday and give up explaining about Stockton and have to bite the bullet and say "have you heard of Middlesbrough"
135) When you can debate for hours whether Doreen's or Oxbridge is the best chippy.
136) When the council can't actually afford trees to plant so they paint them on walls in town and make them look real.
137) When you heard the ICI alarm on a Tuesday at 10 and knew it was time to close all the windows.
138) A member of your family worked at Hygena
139) Your Mam could be found in the "back kitchen" making "fadgies"
140) You remember the old guy who used to sit in the middle of the market and weigh people for 10p on a prehistoric weighting machine?
141) Splash makes "improvements" but you still know its going to be shit.
142) The X1 Bus Service goes EVERYWHERE!
