Taking Sides: London vs. Rest of UK

London -- public transit everywhere at practically every time, lots of cool places to scrounge for odd books, have some drinks and eat good food, and a big ol' river and history everywhere if you're so inclined. And Jane, who lives in New Cross.

Rest of UK -- very green, from what I can tell of it, and looks rather relaxed, plus plenty of fine places here, there, and everywhere that fit the scrounge etc. categories. Edinburgh alone = most worthy.

So it's a tie. Yay.

And thats the main thing. i have very few ties to London, my dad moved away from the area of my birth, i have very few friends left there. I wouldn't want to move back there cos it would be starting afresh but with all off my old prejudices and preconceptions dtopping me from starting afresh.

The rest of the UK, its good, but it isn't london, nowhere quite has that bustle, that livelyness, the speed of life. I love sheffield, but its too easy to be lulled into a state of inaction, because its so easy to be inactivbe there. Manchester, I like it but....., Leeds, Liverpool much the same.

when I'm finished with this university dilly. I'm going to try for New York, Barcelona or Paris.

Make your own conclusions from that

I mean, I live in London, don't I?

But it is mighty expensive.

Technically speaking, London can be defined as 1) Roman London - including Southwark 2) Norman London - London within the walls (ie The City) not including Southwark + the City of Westminster 3) LCC - which extended east to Woolwich, north to Stoke Newington, south to Crystal Palace Parade, west out to the borough of Hammersmith. 4) GLC (now GLA) Any other definition - its Zone 1, surely? is strictly subjective.

' A society of persons did exist at Lambeth...who made a trade of digging up the bodies of the dead: they made candles of the fat, extracted volatile alkali from the bones and sold the flesh as dog's meat'

Somethings never change really

I adore London. So much so that I even look at South London as being better than zone 7 - when its quite clear it is full of corpse exhuming plague pit dwellers. Name me a bad thing about London and I will probably turn it into a virtue. So I am a bit biased.

Rest of UK = Zone 7 = good reason for people to come to London.

So, London= classic, rest of UK= within relatively easy travelling distance of classic.

Where I do part company from London is in regard to the league football teams. London league football teams = dudder than dud can be. Non-league football in London = completely classic, although I did fall ill for a full month after watching Tooting and Mitcham achieve promotion to the DML Premier.

Really, you can count the number of times I've been into Zone 7 on the fingers of one hand. (Not counting going to see the family in Herts, which might as well be London.) No, really. Did a gig in Bath, then afterwards went to Scotland for an elopement (not mine, before you ask). Did a gig in Hull. Went to Brighton twice. And went to Camber Sands for ATP, which might as well have been London for all the Londoners that were there.

This is why the tour in August will be fun. Not that you get to see anything except the dingiest of venues and hotels when you're on tour. But at least it will convince me that there *is* a Zone 7. I'm not entirely sure it exists.

Perhaps there are Americans to whom names like the Leyton Buzzards or the Balham Alligators conjure images of great exotic mystery.

2) Merton Parkas? I live scarily near to Merton, please explain...?

IAN PAIGE!!

Mick Talbot was in ver Merton Parkas, of course, as was his brother whose first name I forget but whose second name was also Talbot, surprisingly. "You Need Wheels" they sang, posing outside Merton Park station. Train wheels? Ew. Talking about music, sorry.

The Southern California equivalent of Zone 7 is 'East of the I-5' -- the claim being there is no life east of said freeway. This assertion is of course correct.

I have a strange (nay, Castrovalvian) feeling we have been here before. That as infinite time unrolls all posts become but one post, and all men are but one man. Impossibly aged, Homer is an ape in the mad ruins of a desert city no one has seen since the third series...

I think I just made D**mpatrol's head explode, over on the other massive.

http://www.ilxor.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005b is

half my time in *very* rural area (maybe west Cornwall, though my rural utopia is Dartington), half my time in a *very* urban area (for some reason, I still fancy Greenwich or Rotherhithe), none of my time anywhere inbetween.

Places are obviously dependent on each other: I can't really answer this thread, though I'd *unequivocally* side with London against at least 50% of the UK, and certainly everywhere else in the south- east. The rest of Britain, it'd be far more ambivalent.

I still think other UK cities are now in a position to offer an urban lifestyle every bit as desirable as London. It wasn't always thus, but I've spent time in Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Leicester, Birmingham, and I thought they were all great. Yes, even Birmingham (it's a grower). Each of them offering the same kind of cafes, restaurants, shops and cultural facilities previously the exclusive domain of the capital, plus with friendlier people, and an increasingly cosmopolitan air to them. So in London vs. rest of the UK, I support the underdog and opt for the latter.

revive as this is fun but has nothing to do with the dead manchester copper

I'm tired of London.

Currently waiting on a job offer that would see me leaving London. Imagine, paying less than £500 a month rent. Wow.

Wonder if the Domino's pizza meal deals are cheaper up north?

Still lovin' it. Could do with working closer to the home and the fuck away from Hammersmith though. Oh wait I'm quitting my job! Yay!

Wonder if the Domino's pizza meal deals are cheaper up north?

What's pizza?

its that muck on round bread them poncy southerners like

I want to leave.

http://img174.imageshack.us/img174/5663/londonmr2.jpg

it should say CAPITAL SHITTY amirite???????????????????

There was no s or h to c&p. :(

I'm tired of London.

I won't insult your intelligence by quoting Johnson as that was probably what you were alluding to but I will quote Boswell which I think is equally good.

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show"

provinces can eat a dick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwj-LjXtymU&feature=related

Everything I have in London I had in Brighton* but it was all closer together so I could walk home and not worry about catching the last fucking tube at half 12.

*Except a job. Balls.

I sometimes consider leaving London, I know my wife would quite like to, but where would I go?

It doesn't matter how annoying London can be, it still has more good stuff than anywhere else in the UK by a fucking mile.

yeah, leaving london has no place in the context of this thread (i.e. elsewhere being rest of uk)

i went to wolverhampton once

explains a lot.

;_;

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show

har this quote's even more depressing than johnson's but the problem is that i don't see London, or rather the London i want to see, when i want to see it

It's kind crazy to say that a city spread over 25 square miles and containing 8 million people has more good stuff than anywhere else in the UK by a fucking mile.. I mean it would be pretty shitty if it didn't, right?

I love London and I was born and bred in the place but I don't see the problem of just going there to see stuff and living somewhere else where I can afford a nice big house with a nice big garden and still have 6d left over for a bag of chips.

i went to leeds once

I liked London well enough. Then I moved to Zone 7 and now I *adore* it. Don't know what you got til it's gone, etc.

so true.

The trouble with growing up in London is it makes anywhere else in the country seem so small and uneventful and beset with inconvieniences ("what'd'you mean I can't get booze from a dodgy offie at 4AM?") that you start to go slightly mad after about three days. I find, anyway.

Not saying other places don't have their plusses, I'm just so totally adapted to London living that anywhere else would take me a long time to adjust to.

The problem is, the things that you miss growing up in the country that you do not find in London are much less tangible. I miss clean air. I miss quiet. I miss being able to walk out of my front door, and within five minutes walk not being able to see another house.

I wish the sea was a lot closer to London. I need to live in/near a big coastal city really.

I feel I would miss the river but sea would probably be an adequate replacement. Have often considered Edinburgh as a place to move, if I ever were to move.

Imagining London with a seafront (I'd be happy with Kent as the underwater garden of England) and even being able to operate as a proper holiday destination on that basis (er, for Northerners at least, maybe) is hurting my brane but fun.

Eurotunnel wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes tho

Reclaim the beach! Srsly, walking along the beach on the south bank when the tide is out is just a teensy bit like being at the seaside. Albeit a gritty industrial polluted seaside.

See this photo set which undermines an already unconvincing argument:
http://flickr.com/photos/ledgr/sets/72157600419466870/

yes. no comparison really but a good effort. :)

London-on-Sea: the future of a city in decay

How is London these days? As opposed to the last ones?

it was really good 2 weeks ago.

what happened then? you're not supposed to be in london!

I ask because I'm going to London next week and I haven't been in a while. If Los Angeles sounds fun and glamorous to you, you should try sitting in traffic for two hours a day. At least you can read on the tube (can't you?)!

i can't read on the bus, it makes me sick. i should listen to "podcasts" more.

Los Angeles does not seem glamourous. Hard for me to think of any major city as glamourous really.

I've recently started listening to podcasts (or "podcasts"?) as a way of dealing with London's stresses, although I probably look a bit weird as I stifle chuckles on the tube. And yes, I does "chuckles".

i was just visiting for a week. oh, the rush hour tube sucks even more than i remembered, but i figure that if i moved to london i would bike lots.

i'm going to be in LA in 2 weeks, as it happens. it doesn't sound all that fun and glamorous to tbh.

ha as if to prove a point the bbc put on a programme about frinton on sea! fuck that place