It is possible that there are uglier towns in the world than

Walsall, but if so I do not know them: and I consider myself

better than averagely traveled. But while Walsall undoubtedly

exists, it is difficult to know where precisely it begins and

ends, because it is in the middle of one of the largest and most

depressing contiguous areas of urban devastation in the world,

the Black Country of the English Midlands. There is nowhere in

the world where it is possible to travel such long distances

without seeing anything grateful to the eye. To the hideousness

of nineteenth-century industrialization is added the desolation

of twentieth-century obsolescence. The Black Country looks like

Ceausescu’s Romania with fast food outlets.

I have been to Walsall twice in my life. The first time was to

visit its then principal attraction for outsiders, an

establishment called the Serpentarium, which advertised itself as

the largest reptile petshop in Europe. It has since closed its

doors, after the owner was found floating in a greasy and

chemically polluted local canal. The coroner’s explanation of his

demise was suicide, though rumors persist that he was killed by

rival reptile smugglers, the illegal importation of venomous

snakes into Britain now being big business. I discovered in the

course of my desultory inquiries after the owner’s death that my

own city council employs an