Adios Paris. Hello Wolverhampton.Not everything that glitters is gold - which is why Ben Aitken gave London the cold shoulder and went to Preston instead.Hailing from Portsmouth, Ben knew from experience that unfashionable places could be quietly brilliant. So, over the course of a year, the author of A Chip Shop in Poznan and The Gran Tour visited twelve of the least popular spots in the UK and Ireland for a city break. The motivation wasn''t to take the mickey or stick the boot in, but to seek out the good stuff, to uncover the gems, to have a nice time. By doing so, he hoped to demonstrate that anywhere - like anyone - can be interesting and nourishing and enjoyable if approached in the right fashion. Ben went skiing in Sunderland, to the football in Wrexham, and fell in love with Dunfermline. He kissed an alpaca in Bradford, suffered jellied eels in Chelmsford, and had more craic in Limerick than was wise. The upshot is a celebration of the underdog; a love letter to the wrong direction; and evidence that there''s no such thing as a shitty break. What''s more, by spreading its affection beyond the usual suspects (which are often overdone and overpriced), Shitty Breaks promotes a less expensive and more sustainable brand of travel. By ghosting Bath and giving Lisbon the boot, the book champions the unsung in an algorithmic, over-signposted world dominated by celebs and hotspots. Cheeky weekend in Milton Keynes anyone?
Ben Aitken was born under Thatcher, grew to 6ft then stopped, and is an Aquarius. He followed Bill Bryson around the UK for Dear Bill Bryson: Footnotes from a Small Island (2015) then moved to Poland to understand why everyone was leaving. A Chip Shop in Poznan: My Unlikely Year in Poland (2019) is the fruit of that unusual migration. For The Gran Tour: Travels with my Elders (2020), the author went on six package coach holidays - Scarborough, Llandudno, Lake Como et al - with people twice or thrice his age in order to see what they had to say for themselves and to narrow the generation gap a notch. The Marmalade Diaries (2022) is the story of an unlikely friendship during an unlikely time, and stems from the author’s decision to move in with an 85 year old widow ten days before a national lockdown.
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