How To Fix 'The North'?

[MuddyOldEngineer]

I'm sure that you do. You do seem to be determined to pick fights this evening.

Its SPOTY season and shes digging out blind.

 

[Civvy Scum]

I know. I'm getting a bit worried about this thread. If it encourages any southern jessies to move up here the next thing you know they'll be telling their mates and we'll be overwhelmed!

Aye, the Chelsea tractors might actually have to use 4 wheel drive as they drive on our potholed cart-tracks, whilst trying to avoid the savage cannibals that want to rob them of their southern money and poke their trophy wives.

Best we get our man-eating whippets trained up to attack anything with more money than sense I think. I'll send you a message by carrier pigeon to arrange ambush points OK?

We don't want any of that effete southern nancy-boy action up here. Stand fast the Wakey contingent.

 

[cowgoesmoo]

I know but it takes what, an hour to drive out of London? Then there's the congestion charge. Why would anyone in their right mind put up with that voluntarily? I've got lovely countryside less than 10 minutes drive from home. I can be on the M1 within 5 minutes. I've got a large shopping centre about a mile away with just about everything I need on a regular basis. There's a train station less than a mile away.

Most people don't drive into/out of London. Personally I think anyone with lives in central London and has a car is mental. But the SE isn't just the square mile. Theres 10 million people who live in the SE and the vast majority don't commute into the city.

Within 90 minutes I can be in London, Heathrow, Southampton, Brighton, Portsmouth, Cheltenham, the Cotswolds, Oxford, Poole, Weymouth, Bath, most of rural Dorset and Somerset, M1/M4/M5/M40/M25. The opportunities if you've got the money are fantastic, you just don't get that living in the north and that's why I just can't see a mass exodus north simply because you don't have to go to the office 5 days a week. I know a few people who've taken semi-retirement/WFH jobs and moved to the Somerset levels or Suffolk and enjoy it, however Northumbria, Lancashire, or N Yorkshire is a different kettle of fish.

 

[Toastie]

Of course. You don’t care at all.

Finally we can agree on something. Anyway, got to go. I’m doing a Vesta boil in the bag curry tonight and it can be a bit tricky watering it down so it’s not too spicy.

 

[widow11]

Finally we can agree on something. Anyway, got to go. I’m doing a Vesta boil in the bag curry tonight and it can be a bit tricky watering it down so it’s not too spicy.

Enjoy!

 

[Civvy Scum]

Most people don't drive into/out of London. Personally I think anyone with lives in central London and has a car is mental. But the SE isn't just the square mile. Theres 10 million people who live in the SE and the vast majority don't commute into the city.

Within 90 minutes I can be in London, Heathrow, Southampton, Brighton, Portsmouth, Cheltenham, the Cotswolds, Oxford, Poole, Weymouth, Bath, most of rural Dorset and Somerset, M1/M4/M5/M40/M25. The opportunities if you've got the money are fantastic, you just don't get that living in the north and that's why I just can't see a mass exodus north simply because you don't have to go to the office 5 days a week. I know a few people who've taken semi-retirement/WFH jobs and moved to the Somerset levels or Suffolk and enjoy it, however Northumbria, Lancashire, or N Yorkshire is a different kettle of fish.

Well like I said, as long as we get the dosh, you can keep the south.

 

[Civvy Scum]

Finally we can agree on something. Anyway, got to go. I’m doing a Vesta boil in the bag curry tonight and it can be a bit tricky watering it down so it’s not too spicy.

Vesta? Mr. Lar-de-dar! What's wrong with black pudding and lard sandwiches?
You're dead to me.

 

[Toastie]

Vesta? Mr. Lar-de-dar! What's wrong with black pudding and lard sandwiches?
You're dead to me.

Yeah, well, gotta push the boat out once in a while, I’m on a promise. I get to drill my northern gopper* from behind; better that way as all the fat pulls the skin across her back tight as it gravitates so she looks almost human. Downside is the stink off her arse as being winter, she’s not keen on getting the tin bath out in the yard what with not having indoor plumbing hereabouts. Still, I can distract myself doing a dot to dot using the blackheads on her arse cheeks.

We are having bread and dripping with it though, none of yer southern Nancy naan bread.

*Born in Woolwich.

 

[Toastie]

Enjoy!

I intend to. See above for my plans for pudding.

 

[Civvy Scum]

Yeah, well, gotta push the boat out once in a while, I’m on a promise. I get to drill my northern gopper* from behind; better that way as all the fat pulls the skin across her back tight as it gravitates so she looks almost human. Downside is the stink off her arse as being winter, she’s not keen on getting the tin bath out in the yard what with not having indoor plumbing hereabouts. Still, I can distract myself doing a dot to dot using the blackheads on her arse cheeks.

We are having bread and dripping with it though, none of yer southern Nancy naan bread.

*Born in Woolwich.

Dusty in here.

 

[Toastie]

Dusty in here.

New Romantic me. Just found this great new band called Depeche Mode. Awesome, gets the birds shedding their sack cloth shift dresses right proper. Hayseeds here don’t know what’s hit ‘em. Gonna try and get it played at the next barn dance.

 

[heard_it_all_before]

Being a southener who's lived in "The North" since the mid 80's, I fail to see what's so attractive about 'The South'. Yes, there's a few nice places but on the whole the metropolitan areas are just overpriced and overcrowded shit tips.

 

[Graculus]

Well, compared to Liverpool Warrington is more like Mayfair.

Parts of Cheshire are grim, no argument. Small pockets of it are well up their own arse, no argument. Vast tracts of it are neither. Just nice places to live with all the amenities you want at an affordable price.

Quite a while back but I was a wee bit surprised at the amount of open drug use in Nantwich and that was whilst living across the water from deepest, darkest Dundee so I had a fair yardstick.

 

[Toastie]

Quite a while back but I was a wee bit surprised at the amount of open drug use in Nantwich and that was whilst living across the water from deepest, darkest Dundee so I had a fair yardstick.

Yep. All the Neds that have been banned from Crewe.

 

[Tool]

When (the odd occasion) I go to London, I visit at least three separate offices, each a few miles apart, in a single day. Each is its own little empire of a major conglomorate. I can't see myself going to three separate villages an hour or two from each other to hold a 2-hour meeting with each little empire, and if I did, I sure as hell would not be visiting a country pub and discussing confidential matters with Worzel Gummage sitting behind me with his point of coider.

I worked for a Scottish through-and-through company for two years, commuting from deepest darkest Norfolk on a Monday morning. Their head office was supposed to be in Glasgow, but the MD and the senior directors spent 4 days out of five in London. Getting hold of them to file documents that needed physical signatures was easier going down to London and ambushing them before their next meeting with shareholders/clients/the Press than a taxi trip into Glasgow and leaving the docs there for signatures.

Corporate Office London is dying, but face-to-face will still need to be centralised. All major organisations will have some sort of presence in Lodon (Greater London?) for the forseeable future.

 

[bob231]

That will be the same Bombardier that's currently recruiting 400 new staff to join the 2,000 already there to help build the £900 million order for South Western Railway or the orders for Greater Anglia and West Midlands Trains?

News of their death is greatly exaggerated

Good news - thanks for setting me straight!

 

[lokiuk]

Yep. All the Neds that have been banned from Crewe.

And still paradise compared to Wrexham

 

[RangdoOfArg]

Schmooze a client in a nice market town with a meal in a country pub?

Hilarious.

David Cameron Walt

 

[RangdoOfArg]

I’m not sure the north “needs“ fixing. That might depend on your definition of the north, I suppose.
I was raised in Staffordshire, and have lived in Hampshire for almost 20 years. Lived other places in between.
There are pockets of poverty all over. Hampshire is, in places, a stunningly beautiful place to live but has places where deprivation is very real. Same with Surrey, Sussex or Kent, or indeed anywhere you care to mention in GB. Housing is costly, and lots of people scrape a living just trying to stay in a place they grew up in and know.
And I think everyone is aware of “the great wen”, as Cobbett described London 200 years ago. It exercises its influence. I notice many predictions of the demise of London on here; I wouldn’t be so sure. I recently teased an acquaintance who works in London and earns a fair wedge why he didn’t return to Middlesbrough and save a bomb. Me: “So, London. Better drugs, better whores, better restaurants?” Him: “Ssshh”.
I’ve moved around. Sometimes for work, sometimes to do other things. You can talk about North and South until the cows come home and it’s mainly nonsense. You do what you can where you can, be neighbourly, and call out a twat when they are being a twat (these people seem to be fairly evenly distributed around the U.K.).

 

[Oops]

Just because you have a vote doesnt mean you're entitled to have everyone else subsidise your stuff - if it was financially viable to have an upgrade to Doncaster airport for example it would have been done by now by a private company who would be happy to take the profit. Why should the rest of the UK subsidise it by providing an airport close by so the locals aren't inconvenienced having to travel to an airport? Why is it ok to spend taxpayers money on a loss-making scheme in the north but not in a profitable scheme in the SE??

Ahem,
May I point out that large chunk of granite,peat,and heather further up that thanks to summat called 'The Barnet Formula' I believe, has done just that for a while now.
( They don't vote for the Government of the UK. whichever colour of rosette they wear)

I'm familiar with Cheshire - kinda like a chavy version of the Cotswolds.

That's why Lancashire exists.

I'm familiar with the Cotswolds - kinda like a chavy version of The Lake District.