The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Monday February 19 2007
Uranus was discovered by William Herschel but not from Slough, as we said in the article below. He discovered it from the back garden of his house at 19, King Street, Bath. The house is now the Herschel Museum.

Only with Slough could a £400m town-centre regeneration project spawn a news report (on the BBC website) that begins: "'Modern', 'attractive', 'healthy' - not words usually associated with Slough." The report reels off five paragraphs of lazy stereotypes about the Berkshire town before, finally, reporting that the borough council is to spend a huge sum of money redeveloping its centre.

As one who went to school in Slough, who worked at its branches of BHS and Boots, who spent Saturday afternoons hanging around its precincts, may I say to the BBC: "Shut it, you ignorant, metropolitan tossers."

Here's what's wrong with Slough: John Betjeman, Ted Hughes (he had a poetical pop, too), Ricky Gervais (great show, but David Brent is no more representative of Slough than Jeffrey Dahmer is of Milwaukee), that patronising-beyond-belief BBC2 programme Making Slough Happy (as if the residents of this prosperous, peaceable town needed the help of halfwit cod psychologists), and snide London hacks who can't see beyond their Fairtrade Polynesian tofu yurts designed by Philippe Starck and think the 120,000 residents of a town they've never visited don't need to be treated like normal human beings.

I return often to my spiritual home, and my six-year-old daughter insists each year on having her birthday party at the Shahzad Indian restaurant on Herschel Street. Why? Because we like it.

I am not claiming Slough is an earthly paradise. It is a working town, solid and unpretentious. But here's what it has going for it: no racial tensions, despite being the most ethnically diverse borough outside London; near-full employment; high-achieving state schools; a branch of TK Maxx where I got a nice waterproof for a tenner before Christmas; and - as we have ascertained - decent Indian restaurants. And history? Uranus was discovered from Slough, by Sir William Herschel. The Cox's orange pippin was raised here 200 years ago. That's more astronomical and horticultural breakthroughs than Hampstead has given us. Oh, and the Mars bar started life here, too.

So next time something half decent happens in Slough, try to mention it without using any of the following words, please: bombs, on, friendly, come, fall. It's all we ask.