A new book has ranked Brighton, Bexhill, Hastings and Horsham among a list of 50 towns and cities which make up a so-called "crap map" of Britain.

Unsurprisingly, council leaders in Sussex have already attacked the tome, using the same lavatorial adjective to describe its authors.

But the pocket-sized guide will no doubt leave some towns and cities with badly bruised egos.

The methods of research employed by The Idler magazine, which launched its hunt on its web site last year, will really stick in the craw.

For the abuse comes not from some self-appointed judging panel but from hundreds of native sons and daughters who queued up to trash their home towns and cities.

Brighton is "labouring under the misapprehension that it is Barcelona," according to contributor Finlay Coutts Britton who rubbishes its "beautiful city by the sea" tag.

He writes: "Half of it is dirty, noisy and packed to the gunwhales with self-important, superficial, nasty young fashion victims with walkie-talkies with 'ironic' ringtones.

"The other half is an ordinary, grimy South-East town with council estates and young mums with love bites and screaming kids and cod-eyed young men drenched in aftershave and cheap gold."

Bexhill is described as "God's Waiting Room", a town where "the very essence of death permeates every molecule in the air".

Sarah Danes' condemnation of the town concludes: "It is a town waiting to die, on a life support machine, with no one prepared to do the decent thing and put a pillow over its head."

Meanwhile Hastings, despite 1066 and all that, is apparently "a town that the rest of the South of England forgot".

Ian Tester said: "No roads go there. Fashion and style left the town in 1959 and the two finest public buildings are two public lavs."

Warming to his theme, Mr Tester even writes a song lyric: "In winter it's bleak, bleak, bleak - driving rain, sea winds and people smoking fags around Iceland (the closest Hastings gets to a deli)."

In the interest of fair play the book has an "in defence" section where residents can stick up for their maligned town.

Unfortunately, no one chose to defend Bexhill.

However, Graham Gubby, leader of Rother District Council, which covers Bexhill, sang the town's praises.

He said: "I hope the book will be treated with the contempt it deserves. I deny Bexhill is anything other than a clean, attractive, safe town in which to live and which has a great future."

Crap Towns, published by Pan Macmillan, costs £10.

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