Blackpool, UK

In terms of distance, it is closer to Atlantic City.

In terms of atmosphere it's more like Coney Island and Rehoboth Beach had a profoundly retarded child.

A profoundly mentally challenged child with a two pack a day habit.

Don't forget the scoliosis, scabies and weeping eye.

Blackpool is good fun, lots to do, friendly people and a (comparatively) decent gay scene compared to lots of other UK towns.

Weather is typically British and it does suffer from deprivation if you go beyond the touristy parts, but well worth visiting!

Blackpool will make you cry.

Definitely more down and out Atlantic City than Cape May, which at least has some architecture.

If you want to shatter people's images of a refined, genteel England, send them to the pleasure beaches.

They talk about it on Strictly like it’s fucking nirvana. Then you get there and it’s a shithole.

I disagree, it isn't a shithole. It has been chronically underfunded for a long time.

Of course Strictly big it up, it's famous for it's dance venue.

There's some Victorian/Edwardian buildings there that are gorgeous, but a case study in how expensive and hard it is to keep those buildings up. The Imperial Hotel in the linked video is one of them. Gorgeous hotel, but a shithole for stays because it needs expensive updating badly.

Blackpool had a buzz in the 60s and 70s - trashy but great fun. Like most UK seaside resorts it is a shadow of its former self and for those like me who remember it in its heyday its sad.

If I went, I’d be most interested in those rickety, century-old rides and the casinos. Northern Soul dances would also send me.

I’d be swanning around the piers in a ratty fox stole, beehive hairdo and bad teeth like I was in "A Taste of Honey".

Chris Lowe and David Thewlis are from there. David hosted a 1994 documentary on the town that captured its ghoulish and garish appeal: Dream Town - A Brief Anatomy of Blackpool.

Check out the horrific moment at 34:12, which influenced the appeal in Psychoville when Maureen (Reece Shearsmith) does an impromptu Tina Turner karaoke routine in blackface.

*directly influenced the scene in Psychoville

Atlantic City is nastier architecturally but not as disturbing in terms of how the visitors behave.

There are lots of YouTube videos about the state of the U.K.'s economy, and a whole genre of 'top 10 worst British cities'. I've seen Blackpool end up on a few of them.

Cape May is a cottage resort. Outside of a few landmarked hotels and some small motels it is mostly privately owned summer houses and the amusements are limited to bathing, sailing and seafood.

It is nothing like Blackpool with its amusement parks and gigantic hotels.

People go to Cape May to lie in porch hammocks, sip iced teas and wonder which 70-year old sub-par oyster place to hit for dinner.

They do not go to Cape May to wear penis hats, take duck-face selfies and drink until they shit the street.

Chris playing It's a Sin on a Blackpool theatre organ.