Drugs may have been increasingly popular with the younger generation in London, but not with fourteen-year-old kids in a provincial backwater.
Banks found it all quite pleasant, which didn't square with his memory of being stuck in a dirty, small-minded provincial backwater.
During this time, the island was very much a quiet provincial backwater in the periphery of the Greco-Roman world.
Wandering the streets of this provincial backwater, I discovered yet again that Washington is all action and no Talk .
Now he is reduced to writing music reviews for local papers in a provincial backwater.
Earth, of all places, which might be the capital of the universe but was still a provincial backwater at heart.
If you want to vent your frustration at living in a provincial backwater, fine.
Also, as a British official in the novel implies, they had on their minds imperial affairs more important than those of a scruffy provincial backwater.
The city had merely a barbaric sparkle, the sort of thing that was well enough in a provincial backwater with no pretensions to greatness.
Your work would do credit to a far older sorcerer whose wisdom would transcend this provincial backwater.