Taking Sides: NORTH OF ENGLAND VS SOUTH OF ENGLAND

i of course consider such attitudes disgraceful

Have no north/south preference but I hate fucking West London, I do.

Right hand neighbours are what is known as a MYSTERY to me. Sometimes I hear their door banging but never see anyone there.

People across in the other block listen to loud ravey music 24/7. In fact I think it is probably GREG SCARTH, you git.

Divide *within* Dorset roughly along constituency lines - West and North more Tory, many fewer people moving in from outside, a lot of foxhunting etc: South (my patch) much more Labour support, edgier, rougher, more move in: Mid and North Poole generally Lib Dem, "new economy" and technocracy, Poole and Bournemouth vast conurbation and more and more studenty, Christchurch very genteel / retired. The split here is a North / South one (rural areas of West and East much the same): "deep country" / more socially mobile coastal areas. Interested in more such divides within counties from those who've lived there.

Mark M's and Gareth's myths both very true: I have literally never had a conversation with my neighbours, and this is no inner-city area ...

Mark S, I imagine people in Hertfordshire feeling like that when the new towns came in: wasn't Telford basically the Stevenage / Basildon etc. of the Birmingham / West Midlands overspill?

Billy: I could never have faced the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield (which was criticised *for the wrong reasons* by the usual trad-right Blair-bashers) after Momus's hagiography 2 years back. Great writing. "Elton John's sales figures" indeed!

1. Momus wrote a hagiography of the National Pop Music Centre that referenced Elton John's

2. Part of this involved mentioning the focus given to Elton John's sales figures

3. This put you off

The mystery might me solved in a rather dull way if you are misusing the word 'hagiography'

It's my sleep deprivation, Nick. It all fits ...

Naughty North or the Sexy South? Dunno, but if London and Birmingham could swop places = Classic!

Anthony

Colloquial Northern English is much closer to Scottish-English than Southern-English, and Northerners generally find it easier to get on with their Celtic cousins than those in the South (in my experience). Many Geordies and Scousers prefer not to identify themselves as English.

come to sheffield at 12 pm sundays to laugh at them 'dancing' i nthe carparks. the howard is just over the roundabout from the station so you dont have to walk far.

Which says it all about Londoners, Ed.

I'm still not sure whether I live in the West Country or the South of England. Anywhere in Somerset is the former, Bournemouth the latter (and Wimborne, for that matter), but Portland is *right* on the cusp.

Debatable, highly debatable in fact. I doubt I'll ever go back to Dorset, shame really, but there you go.

(= major bid for joke of the month btw)

Poole although this may be the reason Jonnie is talking about "The harbour is now the worlds biggest natural one following those Aussies building all over theirs. "

Sydney

Tim will be pleased to hear that Falmouth claims the world's third largest!!!!

and Halifax, Nova Scotia claims to be the second largest in area but the largest in terms of water volume.

more to follow undoubtedly.

dunno - I have been there though and it is nice. But probably not as nice as Arne ;)

http://www.infomagic.net/~martince/wlbanana.htm

Lincolnshire is this corner of England that I haven't been to and know nothing about but it's neither out of the way nor small. Nottingham I get, Hull too. In between, a complete blank. What's there?

Lincolnshire is weirdly big. I think of it as Lincoln cathedral and the good university a bunch of friends work at, but it's also Skegness and Grimsby and where Thatcher was born.

(xp) Peterborough's north of Birmingham!

Yeah, and in the same way, Stoke's only just more notherly than Nottingham in actual location, it just feels different! It might be because Peterborough's actually in Cambridgeshire, which is totally a southerner's county.

Notherly? Northerly, you know what I mean.

Notherly is probably in the Midlands though.

Okay, hang on, need to check if this opinion is controversial... East Anglia is part of The South. Is that just me or is that a commonly accepted feeling?

East Anglia and the West Midlands are their own (single and unified) region

a lot of the issue here is that england's second city (the birmingham-wolverhampton agglomerate) functions as a vast undervalued cultural black hole for reasons that ozzy osbourne and kevin rowland have spent a lifetime explaining to northern AND southern melts (who comprehend this not)

We need Adrian Chiles to arbitrate on this matter.

the black hole thesis is basically the same as the one for modern times that cambrian chronicles offers on youtube re pre-norman times in "the medieval kingdom that was erased from history" btw (also known as "video unavailable")

(content warning: giraldus cambrensis as one of the sources)

as a Wessie my main definition of Yorkshire is the hilly terrain, which is why flat zones like Doncaster feel quite alien to me and could be anywhere similar to Northampton - whereas towns of Lancashire on the edge of the S Pennines like Rochdale feel more like home to me.

I'm from Worcester, which is definitely in the Midlands.

* waves *

one thing that really confuses me is when people from the midlands say they are northern. it's not something I've seen on ilx in recent times but I do remember someone posting that they were from Wolverhampton and also they were northern and being like **wtf**?!?!? no

but the top bit of Cambridgeshire where it turns into Peterborough is definitely East Midlands.

I have a friend here from that bit and he def sounds like he's from the East Midlands. tbf Peterborough historically was in Northamptonshire they just picked it up and moved it into Cambridgeshire brick-by-brick in 1889

To get even more granular, the bit to the East of Peterborough, Fenland, is definitely East Anglia but is probably not East Midlands. Don't know if I'd call it "South" though. All I know is that it's officially the most miserable place in the UK - https://www.fenlandcitizen.co.uk/news/people-from-fenland-the-most-unhappy-in-the-uk-9045306/

another vanished kingdom: west anglia

Lives on in this institution - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_West_Anglia

Staffs is more West Midlands

i know you're right but i mean kind of? South Staffs used to contain Walsall and maybe the entire Black Country, but it doesn't any more - and North Staffs is Stoke and whatever that is

Derby & Notts & Leicester all East Midlands, and there is a bit of a different 'style' of Midlandsiness between West and East

this is also "right" but Derby is pulled North by the Peaks maybe and then places like Chesterfield feel like the almost-North too

Nottingham and Leicester i'll give to the East Midlands absolutely, other bits of Notts i feel a little differently about, when i think about Derby i know in my heart it's the Midlands i just prefer to ignore it out of existence

not the entire Black Country - Dudley & Stourbridge were in Worcestershire

oh yeah good shout

the North starts at Stoke as any fule kno

kay, hang on, need to check if this opinion is controversial... East Anglia is part of The South. Is that just me or is that a commonly accepted feeling?

― emil.y, Sunday, 7 April 2024 14:16 bookmarkflaglink

I don't think this should be controversial but has made me think - technically I am from south of the Watford Gap and I have lived in the south my entire adult life, but I still think of myself as a midlander and probably always will, I strongly believe the midlands is its own thing and not north or south. but some of East Anglia is further north than the west midlands - Norwich is further north than Birmingham for instance

on the other hand I call my mum "mom"

there is also "the west is its own thing" argument which I personally agree with - the south west/West Country doesn't have a whole lot to do with the rest of the south and probably has no reason to be grouped together with it really

West Country / London / Anglia / Central / Yorkshire / Border / Meridian / Granada / Tyne Tees - I don't make the rules

tbf that sort of works