North vs South (...and the Midlands)

[mjmooney]

As suggested by @Demitri_C

Flat caps and whippets? Or Barbour jackets and labradors? 

Go! 

[Seat68]

Southerners hey. Complain that they have to wait more than 3 minutes for a tube. 

[mjmooney]

[theboyangel]

I do not see the South West similar to the South East at all. 
 

Completely different mindset and lifestyle.

The whole North vs South argument is essentially North of London vs London.. 

 

[cyrusr]

16 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

“Town Centre” - laziest place name ever.

[mjmooney]

2 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

“Town Centre” - laziest place name ever.

And why do Headington and Tilehurst get featured? 

[darrenm]

My lazy, limited and stereotyped impressions of the north and south with political bits.

London is lovely, socialist and welcoming. It's a celebration of multiculturalism. There's a different economy inside the M25 where everyone gets paid twice as much (private sector) but also houses are worth twice as much.

Cornwall is very much its own place. Nothing like anywhere else besides maybe Pembrokeshire.

Dorset, Devon and Hampshire are more south centric but still not especially 'south'.

Wales is beautiful but devastated by the English.

The Cotswolds is also beautiful but is full of Tories and Jeremy Clarkson.

The Midlands is hugely complicated. The West Midlands is working class but has lots of people with money from the Black Country and industry (considerably richer than yow). Central Birmingham is similar to London in multiculturalism and liberalism.

Liverpool looks lovely but I've never been. I love the culture and the community and the fact that it's hugely socialist and has always been maligned by the rest of the country. Manchester is a cross between the West Midlands and Liverpool - kept the socialist working class roots from industry but hasn't yet gone to the right like the North East.

North East e.g. everything from Leeds, Sheffield, Middlesbrough up to Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham lots of people who have been ignored, underfunded and communities ravaged by cuts. The lessening of industry and unions have caused the people to reject what now looks like London centric left politics and hit out by voting to leave the EU because they want their industry, prosperity and sepia photo memories back.

Lake District a beautiful place that has almost no-one and nothing there besides the lakes and hills.

So I guess that there's no north or south. There are all these disparate areas with their own stories, challenges and history. 

[Chindie]

A friend of mine always insisted that the South was literally only London and everywhere South East of London.

Speaking as a Brummie, that's obviously bollocks. Also it's evident there's a distinct 'Midlands' that doesn't fit the North South dichotomy.

[Follyfoot]

The people of the north are generally more friendly than the the people of the south. A lot of people in the south believe anything north of Watford is barren and stuck before the industrial revolution. One of the underwriters from a lender who my company introduced business to was amazed to find out that we had restaurants and bars when she visited my offices back in the day ffs

Edited November 1, 2020 by Follyfoot

[It's Your Round]

I’m all for the Midlands being the best of the three options. I live up north now with my wife who’s a Yorkshire lass, her best friend is from Kent. We’ve had plenty of North/South debates covering all aspects from the shite they eat to the strange language they speak. Almost always ends up with them both agreeing that the Midlands doesn’t know if it’s north or south, and nothing good ever came from there.

That’s when I embark on my diatribe of Midlands greatness - Charles Darwin, Black Sabbath, The Birthplace of Industry, Shakespeare, Aston Villa, Isaac Newton, UB40, the modern day Olympics was created in Much Wenlock, ELO, Balti, Tolkien, Duran Duran, Cadbury, Spaghetti Junction, more canals than Venice etc... 

The Midlands really does have its own distinct identity, but those northern monkeys and southern softies are ignorant to the fact. 
 

On the whole though, I’m much more aligned to the North than the South. But in reality, everywhere’s pretty much the same. 

Edited November 1, 2020 by It's Your Round
Forgot to add orange chips...

[mjmooney]

Another way of looking at the conurbations (rural areas have their own dilemmas) is big cities vs the rest. Certainly if you look at big city centres, there's money and prosperity there, both north and south. But the satellite towns around them (the former industrial workshops) are dying on their feet. Compare Birmingham with Wolverhampton, Leeds with Bradford, Manchester with Rochdale, etc. The contrast is shocking. I'm guessing that there are similar contrasts in the south, but I'm less familiar with it. 

[Mjvilla]

57 minutes ago, darrenm said:

My lazy, limited and stereotyped impressions of the north and south with political bits.

London is lovely, socialist and welcoming. It's a celebration of multiculturalism. There's a different economy inside the M25 where everyone gets paid twice as much (private sector) but also houses are worth twice as much.

Cornwall is very much its own place. Nothing like anywhere else besides maybe Pembrokeshire.

Dorset, Devon and Hampshire are more south centric but still not especially 'south'.

Wales is beautiful but devastated by the English.

The Cotswolds is also beautiful but is full of Tories and Jeremy Clarkson.

The Midlands is hugely complicated. The West Midlands is working class but has lots of people with money from the Black Country and industry (considerably richer than yow). Central Birmingham is similar to London in multiculturalism and liberalism.

Liverpool looks lovely but I've never been. I love the culture and the community and the fact that it's hugely socialist and has always been maligned by the rest of the country. Manchester is a cross between the West Midlands and Liverpool - kept the socialist working class roots from industry but hasn't yet gone to the right like the North East.

North East e.g. everything from Leeds, Sheffield, Middlesbrough up to Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham lots of people who have been ignored, underfunded and communities ravaged by cuts. The lessening of industry and unions have caused the people to reject what now looks like London centric left politics and hit out by voting to leave the EU because they want their industry, prosperity and sepia photo memories back.

Lake District a beautiful place that has almost no-one and nothing there besides the lakes and hills.

So I guess that there's no north or south. There are all these disparate areas with their own stories, challenges and history. 

Where I live would be a lovely seaside town if it wasn't for the bloody Welsh!!  

[Xann]

Divided and conquered.

[mjmooney]

Just now, Xann said:

Divided and conquered.

Yep. North vs south, Labour vs Tory, black vs white, urban vs rural, rich vs poor, leavers vs remainers, old vs young, middle class vs working class, Muslims vs Christians... you name it. 

[bickster]

Quote

We plotted the location of all 1,823 Greggs on a map of the UK to construct our very own Hadrian’s Wall, made entirely out of £1 sausage rolls.

Typically, you would expect the North to have way more Greggs, and we found, unsurprisingly, the more South you go the less Greggs there are.

Less than 25,000 people per Greggs is the benchmark to distinguish whether you live in the north. Any more than that and you can expect queues every time you fancy a steak bake, a wholly unacceptable concept to any true northerner.

Therefore, we can now re-draw this dividing line, based on which towns and cities have less or more than 25,000 per Greggs – finally giving us statistical evidence on the north/south divide.

Quote

any major northern towns assert their northernness by having high Greggs per capita ratios. Manchester clocks in with one Greggs for every 10,500 people, followed by Glasgow with one per every 11,000. 14,000 people from Edinburgh have to share the same store, while it’s one for every 22,000 in Leeds.

The contrast to major southern towns is massive. In Southampton, there is one for every 32,000, while there’s a solitary Greggs per every 69,000 Brighton locals. Londoners are a bunch of sausage, bean and cheese melts, having to compete with 92,500 others for their morning sausage roll.

The Tab

[Demitri_C]

Good thread @mjmooney

I would say Birmingham is more south than north surely?

Also i dont want Coventry associated with us southerners you guys in the north can have it!

 

[meregreen]

We are an area heavily influenced and moulded by the Industrial revolution. That makes us more of the North to my thinking. Going back further in time though, Mercia was the most powerful of the kingdoms of ancient Britain. We were the demilitarised zone between the Saxons and Vikings. So we’ve always had to fight our own corner, Heart of England could have been coined for us.

[mjmooney]

25 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Good thread @mjmooney

I would say Birmingham is more south than north surely?

Maybe it's because I live in the actual north (of England, but not Britain, obvs), but I've always considered Birmingham to be far more north than south, culturally speaking. The old Watford Gap cliche is not far off the mark. 

[mjmooney]

And where's @tonyh29 with his 'coal in the bath' stuff? 

[bickster]

9 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

And where's @tonyh29 with his 'coal in the bath' stuff? 

Too busy eating biscuits flavoured to taste like other biscuits