What is northern England like?

You might have more fun if you keep going north.

Shit holes from what I've heard from Brits.

Does sizemeat increase as one moves north? Otherwise a non starter.

It's grim, OP.

R2 in the Domesday book, swathes of the North are referred to merely as ‘waste(land)’.

Isn’t it Billy Elliot territory?

The countryside is better than the south with the Lake district and the Pennines. Also the booze is cheap. Lots of poverty though its never really recovered from the decline of heavy industry.

My grandfather was from a little place in the middle of Northumberland called Kirkwhelpington. I took a little trip out there and it was very beautiful. The river Wansbeck (?) was tiny, but pretty. I ran into the local "lady of the manor" and she took me on a tour of her grand home nearby. A very memorable trip. Kind of wish they hadn't left there and come to the US.

It's grim oop north

They talk funny up there. And there isn't enough diversity.

I've heard they only wash their bedding once a year.

The Full Monty took place in Sheffield and that was depressing as hell looking. In fact, many of those British productions all look like they were filmed in shit holes. I stopped watching Hinterland because it was depressing looking.

There's a song about it.

eeeeEYYEEA of course we hear a lot about London, OP la. S’where all the money goes, isn’t ih?

Frankly, the appeal of places like Newcastle is that they're not awash in the nonsensical demand for diversity. They're still authentically English. And it has some architecture worth seeing. The accent is one of the most loved in England. I'm rather fond of it. Think Pittsburgh in America.

Diversity is not the alpha and omega of human society.

There are quite a few places in the world that are interesting precisely because they aren't just another multikulti mess driven by identity politics. You know, like Japan?

Newcastle is refreshingly. . . English, as opposed to just British.

Whilst not in the Tyne area, all eyes will be on the Hartlepool by-election on 6 May, part of the Red Wall that crumbled in December 2020, bit it is in the northeast, a Labour stronghold - only the Tories have a 7pt lead. I wouldn't call it done and dusted, but even if Labour hold the seat, if it's even close, it tells you something about how the north feels about you fucking metro elites who complain about the area nor being "diverse" enough.

Stay in London if that's all you want.

[quote]Diversity is not the alpha and omega of human society.

Agreed.

It gave us Sean Bean.

“ Diversity is not the alpha and omega of human society.”

Amen 🙌

Newcastle - buy now pay later

Everton - lol

Liverpool - screeching hyenas

ManCity - silent hyenas

ManUtd - touCHY!

Salford - class of who cares

SheffUtd -3-6-9 Brexit Formation

Leeds - Adidas “will this do?” design dept.

Derby County - bastard accent

Nottingham Forest - fail the eye test

Blackburn - massive

Burnley - BDL

A pic of rural Northumberland.

My grandfather's family comes from Nottinghamshire. It's only Midlands, not northern England.

BTW, it may be an insular area. Whenever I've met another Booth, they willingly discuss the family, etc. When a Booth called me to discuss my grandfather's family in Cuba, I contacted the Booth mothership in Nottingham. They responded in a curt email stating there were no Booths in Cuba! Hello, yes, some got there!

(You would think they would be at least interested.)

Manchester is complicated as the City itself isn't very large (about 47sq miles), Greater Manchester which encompasses 10 of the surrounding towns and Cities is 493 sq miles and has a population of about 3 million.

There aren't really any gaps between the surrounding boroughs. As with most Cities it looks better from a great height.

"Take me away from all this....DEATH....except for Manchester".

In the North all seems to breathe freedom and peace and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.

R19, if you're shoving Derby and Nottingham into the North, why stop there? You could put in Cornwall and Jersey while you're at it.

The hillbilly English people scare the shit out of me.

There is wonderful landscape (Lakes, Peak District, Pennines, along Hadrian's Wall), great medieval cathedrals (York, Durham, Carlisle), elegant spa towns (Harrogate, Buxton), grand 19th century cities like Manchester and Leeds with lots of culture (theatres, orchestras, art galleries, museums); spectacular country houses (e.g. Chatsworth) - easily as much to see and do as any dozen US states put together.

Hadrian's Wall does seem interesting

[quote]I stopped watching Hinterland because it was depressing looking.

It's a mixture of depressing & amazingly beautiful; it doesn't help that the lead detective has a face like a basset hound

That said, I've always had this fantasy about buying some farm in the Yorkshire Dales & having big groups of sheep that roam all over the place, only to discover that a guy that looks just like James Norton is my vicar. Well, I'm going to church now!

This is no doubt a product of watching too much PBS, but it's still a lovely idea

r5 Most places do tend to be pretty empty after mass genocide

I was in Swale-Dales one sunny day on a car tour and came across the filming of an episode of All Creatures Great and Small. It was Guy Fawkes Day, and bon fires lit up the hillsides through the night on my way back to Sheffield -- a memorable birthday in 1990.

Blackpool is where it's at!

I’ve been binging on Time Team since Covid and am planning a trip to tour the Roman ruins like Hadrian’s wall Vindolanda, some of the Villas. It’s fascinating stuff. My ancestors were mostly from roxburgheshire and York. I would love to rent a Miata and drive to Scotland, but I’m too afraid I would fuck up with driving on the wrong side of the road.

Have any of you been to the Orkney Islands in North Scotland? It looks beautiful and I'm curious about the people there.

R34, as far as I can remember, an American family has been resident on remote Fair Isle for a while now. It has a website. It is a bit of a stretch to call a group of the Scottish islands "northern England", however.

Are Northern women pleasant and honest? Every single Southern English woman I've met, known or dealt with has been a raging cunt. Dishonest, self-absorbed, passive aggressive as hell, completely phony and just as nasty as can get. Especially the middle and upper middle class bitches from the South of England. They must be the nastiest, most evil humans on the planet. Bitch cunts, every single one of them.

R36 fucking hell, where exactly did you go to meet all these women? If your experience was anything like mine, you must have been in been Greater London, or one of the Home Counties (I lived in Kent for a bit, never again).

Can’t speak for the South or the North, but in the West we locals are generally friendly, unassuming, generous and fairly upfront. You get the nasty rude snooty types, women and men, but most of them are New Money townies who want to mock up an ersatz Town & Country lifestyle. The unspoken provincial code is to be hospitable and easygoing where at all possible.

There again, most English people are not outgoing or forthright in their friendliness as some Americans expect or would like. You have to adjust for the national standard, and the character of the country.

Skip England and vacay in Scotland.

R37, you guessed correctly. I lived in Southwest London, Surrey and Berks for years.

As a generalisation, most northerners are far friendlier, but more blunt than southerners. Culturally (as a Scot), I think people of places like Liverpool or Newcastle are more like the people of Glasgow or Dundee than they are like the people of the Home Counties (but, then, Edinburgh has a lot more in common with Hampshire and Surrey). Generally, northern England has been more industrial than the south (coal-mining, textiles, shipbuilding) and a lot of that wealth was extracted from the regions and centralised in London. It means that when the industries left, the wealth quickly disappeared too.

Most of the north of England suffered from severe economic shock during the eighties and nineties, and some of the smaller towns have still not recovered, but the big cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle are great places to visit, and a lot of money has been poured into the Arts in those places. There are also smaller places which are still relatively untouristed but well worth a visit, such as Lancaster and the coastal towns.

The countryside is spectacular: the Yorkshire dales, the Lake District, Northumberland. For such a small island with a relatively large population, it’s a miracle that so much of the UK countryside is unspoiled.

Veritable shithole.

All that matters in the UK are the Home Counties, apparently.

[quote]What is northern England like?

There are more blonde people there than the rest of England.

R39 ah, yes, that makes sense.

There’s a reason Harry Potter’s aspirant and abusive Muggle family were local to Surrey...

The further North you go, the more difficult the regional accents are for Americans to understand.

You're right, R35, I meandered off location. Thanks for the tip; I'm going to poke around and see if the family has a blog.

[quote] The further North you go, the more difficult the regional accents are for Americans to understand.

Tip: the pitch of their voices climb higher in proportion to their levels of anger.

Watch the "Likely Lads," a sixties Britcom about two men (actually played by actors ten years older than they should be) in Northern England trying to live the life of Swinging London in the sixties

Gollum and the evil one snuck up and crept away with her-er, her-er, her-er, her-er yeah

r38 With the exception of Edinburgh which has found its niche as a slightly less expensive London (with about as many southerners) the lowlands aren't that different from Northern England. Its wet, its post industrial, lots terraced houses, and everyone' including the children are slightly drunk. The highlands are beautiful though.

As an American, I was in a little place called Alnwick, Northumberland (which has an amazing castle) and a little old man with a long beard started talking to me. I couldn't understand one word he said!

You mean THIS sort of accent!

It’s like the south of England, only higher up

Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield have never recovered their days of glory around the turn of the 20th century. All continue to look and feel depressed, especially if you compare with London. The countryside can be very beautiful Up North. Some towns like Lytham St Annes, Harrogate, Buxton have a genteel sheen to them.

Soul music was huge there in the 70s

In need of stimulus

R54 Northern Soul shuffle dance looks so much fun to do. Wonder if it’s easy for a beginner? I’d love to learn.

R15 is right. Same as when you go to Cairo to see the pyramids, you don't want to see a Pizza Hut staring back at you. You want Eqyptian food. Globalization and the McDonalding of the world takes something from culture.

There are places where it can be multicultural and there are places like villages in the Amazon where you want to see their culture, not Giselle Bundchen.

Not every place has to be the same. That's world diversity.

R51 you’re mistaken; that’s an extremely thick Gloucestershire accent. Southwestern bumpkin’s brogue.

It’s the British equivalent of a something like a Kentucky or Iowa farmer accent.

They’re a lot like North Macedonia, the Russian federation & Mauritania. Lots of farms.

‘OW is that ANY of your FOOKIN’ business, OP?

La grande, l'incomparable Lily Savage

Watch Coronation Street OP, that pretty accurate. I believe it's meant to take place near Manchester.

They leave [the] articles out of all their sentences, at least on LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX.

[quote]Hadrian's Wall does seem interesting

Hadrian was my role model.

I'd love to spend like three or four months in Britain and just visit EVERYWHERE, but I think that, even with its superior railway system, it would be challenging for an American to get around unless he is braver than I and willing to learn to drive on the left.

[quote] They leave [the] articles out of all their sentences, at least on LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX.

They add the (abridged) article to the previous word, as in'T Last Tango in Halifax. Sometime it's inaudible.

In 1982 I ordered a gin and tonic in a pub in Kingston upon Hull but that didn't work out. They had little fishing boats in the harbor in those days, before the hecatomb which was the Common Fisheries Policy.

In 1985 a straight friend and I, both from London, went into a pub in Warwick for lunch and were immediately ushered by the landlord away from the bar and into a separate dining room, away from the locals who (I assume) the landlord thought might start muttering about 'southerners.' On that day Shirley Williams was having a meeting upstairs in the pub and on her way up she looked in on my friend and me and glared at us; I don't know why she glared, we weren't even fucking or anything. Purists may carp that Warwick is not truly the North, but my experience shows otherwise.

R22, even from this height Manchester doesn't look good.

Mohammed Imran Ali Akhtar, 37.

Asif Ali, 33.

Tanweer Ali, 37.

Salah Ahmed El-Hakam, 39.

Nabeel Kurshid, 35

Iqlak Yousaf, 34.

[quote] Hadrian was my role model. —DJT

Who was your Antinous, DJT?

Manchester supposedly has a vibrant gay scene around Canal Street.

Yes, bashers throw gays into the Canal.

R70 it took the police 20 years to do anything about the Muslim sex gangs preying on local non-Muslim girls; because police worried about the bad optics.

SPARKLE HARKLE MEAGAIN

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Member of Parliament Keith "Make me your bitch" Vaz seems to disagrees that 'white teenage girls are worthless and can be abused without a second thought'

I'm surprised by all the negativity. I used to live in Yorkshire. It was paradise. It's very green because it rains a lot. You sometimes have to stop in the middle of the highway to wait for the sheep to cross the road, and there were so many wonderful historic places to visit. The locals call everyone "luv" and their accent is charming. I wish I still lived there.

R78 is a sucker for God's Own Country, which is what Yorkshire folk call the county.

God's Own Country was fiction. That unskilled, misfit couple would be bankrupt within a year

A U.S. analogue might be the region of western New York State, western Pennsylvania and northern Ohio. Areas with significant natural beauty, but economically hard pressed for the past 40+ years. Cold climate. Larger cities - Rochester NY, Pittsburgh PA, Cleveland OH - still have a degree of urban presence, and smaller ones are, for the most part, still reeling from the loss of manufacturing and mining jobs, and suffering population declines. Think Elmira, NY or Altoons, PA. There remains a very strong rural/agricultural presence. that is an important part of the regional economy The political mindset is increasingly conservative, though the U.K. has to its benefit a much more generous social and health programme than the U.S.

I think the TV show Last Tango in Halifax does a good job of showing both the positives and negatives of life in the North of England. It's worth watching if you want a sense of how people live there.

R81 That might be a satisfactory comparison but Britain has to deal with the White Man's Burden of being a former empire.

Britain now has to play host to millions from the former colonies choosing to enjoy Britain's generosity.

(For instance a couple from Cameroon get a free house for their eight children in Luton.)

God's Own Country The phrase is also, and perhaps most famously, used to describe Yorkshire, England's largest county.[15][16][17] This is used interchangeably with "God's Own County".[18][19][20]

That Wiki says eight different countries claim to be 'God's Own'.

I think it's a worthless claim if so many Godless people claim it.

Pretty much everyone in the UK is 'Godless' by US standards, only 1% of people go to church, and a third of those are over 70.

Wasn't the recent version of "All Creatures Great and Small" filmed somewhere in the north of England?

The countryside was beautiful, though I am aware that could have been due to a particularly skillful cinematographer.

[quote] Pretty much everyone in the UK is 'Godless' by US standards, only 1% of people go to church, and a third of those are over 70.

Unless you opt out you are Church of England in England, that also goes for Yorkshire which thinks it really is the Promised Land.

R86 Yorkshire. James Heriot was the vet in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. His former practice is a museum. I own racehorses that are stabled near there.

[quote] I own racehorses that are stabled near there.

Welcome back, your late majesty.

R87 The North-West of England is one of the last Catholic strongholds in the UK due to the considerable Irish Immigration, nobody goes to those church's either.

[quote] God's Own Country

God = Muhammud.

Islam = Submission.

[quote] those church's either

Oh dear R90

Newcastle has a fine river with plenty of Victorian bridges and Victorian buildings in the town centre. Sheffield is surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the UK - the Peak District. Climbers like to live there. The real shit holes are places like Coventry, Birmingham, Leicester and Bradford. Ugly towns with no history.

Newcastle-under-Lyme or Newcastle upon Tyne or some other place R93, nincompoop.

Leicester is great R93.

Up the Foxes!

R95 Leicester is another Islamic den of abuse.

THEY want to be in England but only on their terms.

Leicester is a great city. Love living here.

R98 = ayatollah

R98 Do you hear The Muezzin four times a day?

Do you have no-go areas?

Hey R100 it's five times a day, you have no idea gurl.

[quote] the "call to prayer" has to be done loudly and at least five times a day.

It's almost heaven. Like West Virginia.

[quote]Pretty much everyone in the UK is 'Godless' by US standards, only 1% of people go to church, and a third of those are over 70.

So all of those TV shows with quaint villages where everyone knows the vicar -- that's all fake?

Hey R100 if you're a man there are no no-go areas in Britannistan; I was slightly taken aback with all the Muslims praying in the streets stopping the traffic but I didn't feel that I was in any danger from the prayers all of whom were on their individual carpets in the open air with their faces on the ground.

[quote] So all of those TV shows with quaint villages where everyone knows the vicar -- that's all fake?

The CoE has a statutory duty as State Church to provide certain services. For instance if a Muslim couple wish to get married in church they can: the vicar is a state official and will certify them married according to the law although I assume not accordingly to the law of the Church.

[quote] the vicar

I prefer the dishy Vicar in Hyacinth's neighborhood.

Hyacinth is dead.

The Church of England churches are empty.

Approximately 30 Church of England churches are declared closed for regular public worship each year.

Did an overnight in Manchester about 10 years ago. Interesting architecture, food was expensive (I think the pound was quite high at the time), couldn't understand a damn word anybody said.

It's the home of Pam the Northern Powerhouse!

I found Manchester to be very friendly and easy going while still having a big city vibe. The pace of life is slower than London. But Liverpool, however, was a horrible place full of violent, dangerous drunks and aggressive panhandlers. It's a mean, violent city. Has a kind of grim, desperate vibe. The Beatles historical sites are all I would ever go there for. However, I must say I did meet a couple native Scousers who were funny and amiable. Sober, of course.

[quote] Did an overnight in Manchester about 10 years ago.

No pronoun. You might as well start with, "So." That's you R109 from Ignoranus.

[quote]Hyacinth is dead.

I beg your pardon?

Gary Neville is definitely DILF material.

R112 You need to know that R109 is replicating the argot of Nathaniel Winkle

[quote] Did an overnight in Manchester about 10 years ago. Interesting architecture, food was expensive (I think the pound was quite high at the time), couldn't understand a damn word anybody said.

She sounds like some minor queen from Craggy Island.

Hey R115 we can do without the argot of Nathaniel Winkle.

I visited York not long before the pandemic struck, and I really want to go back again. It’s the ideal small city, full of history, with a beautiful historic centre filled with interesting shops and museums. The winding medieval streets leading up to the Minster are filled with cafes, bookshops and antique shops.

The people who live there would be justified in feeling overwhelmed by the number of tourists, but they were incredibly open and friendly. It’s on my list of places to visit once the world is mask-free again.

I did my family tree and found that my surname originates from the north of England, and that a good chunk of my paternal ancestors were from the Northumberland region. There is a knightly manor there that is connected to my family, apparently. I know from photographs that the country is beautiful, though, as others have pointed out, northern England is known for being gloomy and poverty-stricken; I imagine it's culturally similar to the rust belt of the U.S., except with weather like the Pacific Northwest (I grew up in rainy Oregon, and I always liked the weather—perhaps it's in my blood). At some point my ancestors traveled south, as I have a great-grandfather (my 11th, if I remember correctly) who graduated from Cambridge.

[QUOTE] Newcastle-under-Lyme or Newcastle upon Tyne or some other place [R93], nincompoop.

I can tell you're not British. Everyone here means the city of Newcastle on Tyne when they say 'Newcastle'. The other little town is irrelevant and rarely mentioned.

[QUOTE] I was slightly taken aback with all the Muslims praying in the streets stopping the traffic but I didn't feel that I was in any danger from the prayers all of whom were on their individual carpets in the open air with their faces on the ground.

This doesn't happen in countries like Turkey and Egypt, let alone in the UK, you fucktard. Hope you're being sarcastic.

York is beautiful, as is Durham and, further south, the parts of Lincoln near the huge cathedral. Hull, Grimsby and Scunthorpe live up to their names - all dire. Scarborough is run down but worth a visit for the cliffs and beaches. Doncaster, Retford, Wakefield - all grim.

[quote] I was slightly taken aback with all the Muslims praying in the streets stopping the traffic

The streets of Paris are being imposed upon

[quote]Sheffield is surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenery in the UK - the Peak District. Climbers like to live there. The real shit holes are places like Coventry, Birmingham, Leicester and Bradford. Ugly towns with no history.

Sheffield is notable for being one of the few towns even uglier than Birmingham. Coventry was unfortunate in having been flattened during WW2 and Birmingham has a shit ton of history despite hosting some of the worst town planners in Christendom. As for the Peak district, I think you will find the scenery bleak rather than beautiful. There is nothing much to see when you are sufficiently above seal level that your ears pop and trees refuse to grow. See also all the moorlands.

*sea level but also very few seals around.

[quote] Coventry was unfortunate in having been flattened during WW2

And then it was replaced a new city centre.

It was a Futuristic new city centre— as modern as Tomorrow!

Feeling very vindicated that the bastard who picked on me in highschool ended up going to Uni in Coventry for a bullshit psychology degree and then getting a middle-management job in Birmingham so he could support his homely preggers Frau. Have a nice life, dickhead.

R85 Don't worry. The Muslims are gonna breed non stop and 10-20% of the UK population will be Muslims in 20-30 years time. Just take a look and France and you will have an idea what the UK will be like in the future.

Britons used to proclaim that they helped the 'underdog'.

The dogs are breeding and they will soon eat the Britons.

Is the north where people use words like "nowt" and "summat" and use "were" instead of "was"?

Aye, R130

Sheffield is where "The Full Monty" was set, wasn't it?

We had fun at Leeds.

When you go to the dictionary to look up "nativist reactionary", R15 is given as an example.

Had three aunts in Wolverhampton who I went to visit regularly in the 80s. Depressing and since totally changed from Irish immigrants to Pakistani immigrants, but some nice outlying areas. I think Hyacinth was from that area, right?

R135 Liam Payne is from Wolverhampton, and is considered by the local metric to be solidly middle-class.

Alabama North.

I live in a northern town on the outskirts of Greater Manchester, and most large towns are divided along ethnic lines (either white, or Pakistani/Bangladeshi). What is surprising is that there are now lots and lots of recent immigrants and asylum seekers from Africa. I just don’t know what the government is thinking by sticking them in high rise blocks in the poorest towns in the country. Northerners are not friendlier than southerners in my experience, but they are funnier. As depressing as my town can be I do feel lucky to live so close to Manchester which has a fantastic gay village.

R81 R137 I always thought that the better equivalency to the US was Northern England = The American South. (minus the hollowed out post-industrial economics which are more like the US Rust Belt). But in Britain where your accent used to immediately "place you" in the social classes, I always thought the Northern accent(s) were perceived like the southern drawl is in the US - no matter what your economic status or education level the Northern accent placed you as dumb, uneducated, and racist. Native Brits, is this not true...?

And the rabid racists on this thread... jeez, let's put you back in the 11th century ("these fookin' Normans are raping out children and takin' all our land!! Fook them!")

[quote]I live in a northern town on the outskirts of Greater Manchester, and most large towns are divided along ethnic lines (either white, or Pakistani/Bangladeshi).

Why Pakistani/Bangladeshi and not Indians? Are they more assimilated?

York is the only place in England where I had someone (a young lady at a restaurant) unable to understand my American accent. She had to get someone else to come and take my order.

I visited York too R118 over a bank holiday weekend; it is a beautiful city, full of history (and tourists & people partying over the holiday weekend), but it had a considerable homeless problem and had trash piling up everywhere. If I went again, I'd spend more time in the Yorkshire countryside.

r140 They tend to be more middle class. Also they drink alcohol which is one of our main cultural activities up here And there's just a lot less Indian immigrants in general. And the ones that are around tend to despise Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. I seem to remember a few actually joined the BNP back in the mid 2000s.

Are grooming gangs present in each city?

The highlight of my trip up North was Castle Howard in Yorkshire, well worth a visit!

1989*

Hings hae nought been th'same since t'Normans arrived.

[quote]I always thought that the better equivalency to the US was Northern England = The American South. (minus the hollowed out post-industrial economics which are more like the US Rust Belt). But in Britain where your accent used to immediately "place you" in the social classes, I always thought the Northern accent(s) were perceived like the southern drawl is in the US - no matter what your economic status or education level the Northern accent placed you as dumb, uneducated, and racist.

That's nonsensical. The equivalence is Northern England and the industrial Midwest. It's true though that the telltale accent of the working class Midwesterners are perceived by the coastal elites as indicative of being dumb, uneducated and racist.

'And the rabid racists on this thread.'

Klan Grannies are on all the threads where they think there's an opportunity to make a racist remark.

R148 That's nonsensical. The working class Midwestern accent (Iowa, Chicago, Ohio) is, in fact, the standard "classless" accent of the US in general, and predominates in all West Coast accents.

They have all their teeth out at 21 or 22 and get dentures.

R151 Well, that explains the unintelligible accents then.... toothless with bad dentures.

[quote]That's nonsensical. The working class Midwestern accent (Iowa, Chicago, Ohio) is, in fact, the standard "classless" accent of the US in general

You're a moron if you think that a Chicago accent is the standard U.S. accent.

Friday prayers in Newcastle: you can't drive because traffic is brought to a halt by Muslims praying in the streets. The mosques are not big enough.

R153 There are numerous and unique accents in Chicago... but the WASP Standard English of Chicago became, in mid-twentieth century, the foundational argot of CA and West Coast standard English and the "media" standard, c.f. BBC Brit-speak. Of course "standard" English is problematic as a concept. The original point was that the "Northern" accents of England had some equivalency to the "Southern drawls" in the US

[quote]there is a well described dialect known as General American, which is also known as Standard American English, although many object to the title for the reason given in the first paragraph. George Phillip Krapp first named the dialect and described it as "Western...but not local in character." Later work added Northwestern, Midland American, and even California dialect (thanks to Hollywood's proliferation in the media). Nowadays, General American is understood to be the speech which does not fall under the following regional accents:

Eastern New-England (esp. Boston) The American South New York City And the following regional dialects which have more recently been excluded from General American:

Mid-Atlantic (including New England) Western Pennsylvania Inland North (Great Lakes area)

r155, you can't baffle anyone into believing the BS that the Chicago accent is the standard U.S. accent.

[quote] The other little town is irrelevant and rarely mentioned.

Whippersnapper at R120.

Neighbours at Radcliffe-On-Trent in Nottinghamshire

R158 That is why educated Indians all speak English.

I was in the Lake District in 1984. I thought it was lush and beautiful.

R148 The only things that I'd disagree with is that the North of England is in any way Industrial, that was destroyed in the 1980's over 30 years ago. We have more people working in IT than in factories.

The part of England that is perceived to be the most racist is the South-West (Somerset, Devon, Cornwall etc) as they haven't ever had sizeable ethnic communities.

'Friday prayers in Newcastle: you can't drive because traffic is brought to a halt by Muslims praying in the streets. The mosques are not big enough.'

FUCK OFF KLAN GRANNY

This doesn't even happen in Muslim countries like Egypt, not that you have ever left the mainland US.

'The part of England that is perceived to be the most racist is the South-West (Somerset, Devon, Cornwall etc) as they haven't ever had sizeable ethnic communities.'

These people hate all interlopers including white people from other parts of the UK, like London. If you sell a house to someone not from the west country, you're considered a traitor by many.

R162 This doesn't even happen in Muslim countries like Egypt

You've never visited Luton or Leeds or Paris.

On my way to Chatsworth, I was stunned by the ugliness of Sheffield. Incredible to think that it's just over the moor from one of the most beautiful places on earth, and it's one giant pile of unremitting ugliness. Every new building is hatefully ugly. The architects there must loathe humanity. And there are endless lines of shops with roller doors on their fronts. I was wondering how this phenomenon developed. I wasn't long enough in the city to notice its muslim population, but perhaps that accounts for it. Because it's like something you'd see in the shit parts of the middle east.

[quote]Have any of you been to the Orkney Islands in North Scotland?

Yes, I was there a couple of years ago. Landscape-wise, it's pretty bleak, with the exception of some spectacular cliffs and coastlines. Mostly deforested and dominated by sheep and agriculture for making whiskey. Some fascinating ruins of really ancient pre-historical settlements. I quite enjoyed it.

I'd like to return and explore the region, see places like Castle Howard and Newcastle-on-Tyne (I love industrial architecture, and Newcastle has a distinguished and well-preserved core). But northern England is full of some of the dreariest places in Europe, uglier even than their US equivalents, who usually manage a couple of Beaux Arts civic buildings and an above-average art museum. The lack of tree-lined streets in the less wealthy neighborhoods in the UK turns blocks that could be quite charming into something resembling rows of rain gutters. And the UK has always been, at the architectural level, reactionary and virulently anti-French (thus the lack of Beaux Arts planning). While other places in the late `19th and early 20th centuries were experimenting with new forms and materials, the British retreated into neener-neener-I-can't-hear-you-Tudor kitsch. Postwar, they tried to make up for it by building windowless cement blobs everywhere.

Oh well, the countryside is exquisitely lovely.

[quote] Coventry was unfortunate

There's a place west of Coventry called The Black Country.

Cedric Harwicke said he saw 'hell’ there. He said the place deserved its title of The Black Country. There were slums and noisome alleys where the sun never seemed to shine. He saw families of twelve and fifteen souls living in a single room that was kitchen, bedroom and bathroom combined. Ragged children toiled alongside their gaunt parents hammering chains link by link.

They were Working Class then; now they're Welfare Class.

This thread is illuminating for the fact that so few American posters ever seem to have travelled! Merely relying on things they've heard, movies seen, or books read.

The Queen is basically God of England.

R169 Are you new here? DL thinks the UK is either like Downton Abbey or some kind of ISIS-controlled hellhole. Anyone outside of that is a "chav", a word they saw used once twenty years ago which they now think means any white British person who isn't landed gentry.

I've been to the UK twice -- but neither time did I get out of the London area. (Well, the second time, after a week in London, I did take a bus to Southampton to embark on a cruise.) I'd love to explore the entire island, though.

R162 In Egypt they have big enough mosques. There FIFY.

Friday prayers in Leeds: you can't drive because traffic is brought to a halt by Muslims praying in the streets. The mosques are not big enough.

[quote] They were Working Class then; now they're Welfare Class.

They're Wayfair class.

R166 I’m originally from the West, and I dislike (white, flash, Southern/Eastern) Townie interlopers just as much as proper foreigners on Welfare. They’re both equally cunty and disrespectful of local culture, albeit in totally different ways, and they both abuse local resources without giving back then have the audacity to accuse the place they’ve occupied of being inhospitable. They also build ugly trashy McMansions in green space, start vanity businesses that fail and damage towns, pollute (those big ugly SUVs should be outlawed) and litter, and behave in an imperious entitled way toward provincial workers. Got no time for them.

Northerners rarely come down our way, but on rare occasion they do I’ve found them to be charming, friendly, sound people keen to integrate, so I’ve got no problem with them (except that one Scouse bitch I met at College who led me on then stood me up for her boyfriend that she forgot to mention, but who’s counting).

[quote] I did take a bus to Southampton to embark on a cruise.

You type poors.

"A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure." - MHT, OM

R177 sweeping generalisation.

Take my example—technicallly I can drive (manual and automatic), been able since I was sixteen, had lessons for years, and took the test several times with full blessing of instructors. Even so, the DVLA refuse to grant me a full driving license, due to my poor eyesight and my slow reflexes (thanks, Hans Asperger). As I don’t make enough and haven’t got a trust fund/wealthy family to lean on, I can’t taxi or move somewhere urban where it’s possible to get trains all the time, plus there’s no reliable fast Uber where I live (rural, middle-low income area) either. Some of us don’t have a choice other than to take a bus.

Not to mention, the U.K. bus services are a damn sight better and more respectable than your typical scabby U.S. Greyhound, anyway.

Please stop saying England when you are referring to Scotland.

This thread is about northern England, not Scotland which is even grimmer.

Almost 200 posts and nothing about cock size? I guess if everyone is white and drunk it really doesn't matter much.

I appreciate the American comparisons to PA/NY/OH, where you must have a car. What is public transport like in the UK in the small cities? Do many people live full lives without cars or would you be considered sad and poor?

If you think Sheffield is bad, you should go to Rotherham.

R176 you're not convincing anyone.

I know that R180, just as I know the Orkney’s are not in England as one poster suggested, and in fact the Queen isn’t ‘Queen of England’ either. Scotland is not grim, Edinburgh is a fabulous city and the Scottish countryside - and not just the Highlands- is amazing.

[quote] the Orkney’s

Oh dearie me.

Doncaster is a giant council estate. The whole of South Yorkshire is a toilet.

r177 It was a cruise line-provided motorcoach that took us from Victoria Station direct to the cruise terminal. Not just a "bus."

I usually like to do a lot of research before I travel, but despite doing so, I didn't realize that the day I would embarking on the cruise (hence the day I'd be going from London to Southampton) was also the first weekend day after schools let out in the UK for the summer holiday. The traffic to Southampton was a nightmare and we were actually late arriving for the cruise. (But they waited for us since they were responsible for getting us there.)

R177 in his cruise line-provided motorcoach...

I'm from Surrey, and while I like visiting the North (anything above the Thames is Northern to me!), I really love Edinburgh in Scotland. I prefer it to London because it's a more manageable size. Like my corner in Surrey, you're only a hop, skip and a jump from beautiful countryside in Edinburgh.

Once you remember that by historical rights northern England is southernmost Scotland, you'll have more perspective. But keep it to yourself. There's a lot of denial.

r47

Is a good show, too bad so much of it was lost. The follow up series in the 70s was not nearly as good

The best thing that ever happened to Sheffield is Threads.

I get the feeling that all of England has turned into London and Not London.

R114 ta much. Nice to know someone can appreciate a quality bloke. It’s critical me and Our Philip are treated with a bit more respect around here...

[quote] Liverpool, however, was a horrible place full of violent, dangerous drunks and aggressive panhandlers. It's a mean, violent city. Has a kind of grim, desperate vibe.

Whole fookin’ place is crawling with bad tramps. If it’s not local talent you’re dealing with, it’s sicarios, slippery Paddy bastards, or gangbanger refugees they fished out the fookin’ canal.

When that mithery cunt Carragher and that whiny mingebag Gerrard are the best your fookin’ hellhole of a city can offer, you know you’ve got no chance, mate.

I've been to England/Britain four times, and never north of Cheltenham. I have seen all of the Angry Young Men British New Wave cinema, so I feel sufficiently depressed and suicidal about the North, though.

It's interesting to me how politics in England/Britain run. Brexit" Leave was super strong in the north, but not at all in Scotland (belying the notion that the North was just Scotland-lite). Again, the equivalency with the US South/Bible Belt seems right (minus the rusted industries, which are more like Ohio/PA.MI)

There are long-simmering tensions between the troll and the elf populations. Both claim the land as their own, and refuse to share with the other.

Kind of like Datalounge.

Minus the Bible as well R195, we loaded the puritanical Plymouth Brethren onto ships centuries ago.

Not sure where they ended up?

What is northern England dick like?

Do the younger people in Northern England share their elders' reluctance to shower, bathe or clean their teeth regularly?

[quote] What is northern England dick like?

Spotted

[quote]Do the younger people in Northern England share their elders' reluctance to shower, bathe or clean their teeth regularly?

It has poverty, but not the desperate poverty you find in America, if that's what you're asking, Sweetie.

[quote] belying the notion that the North was just Scotland-lite

r195 The Scots just blame the English for their issues and think they're being oppressed by bureaucrat's and politicians in a foreign capital who don't represent them and now believe leaving a union with their biggest trading partner is the way forward to a magical future of prosperity. Northern Brexiters essentially had the same belief system just replace Westminster with Brussels.

How is the gay cruising scene?

R203 In trying to describe a commonality you confirmed the fundamental difference...

Northern England could be worse. It could be Glasgow. What a city! Every single man, woman and child in that shithole looks like they were taken down an alley at some time in their life, and battered.

And the blighted social housing, as one leaves the city, goes on for half an hour, even when driving at a steady pace.

Glasgow is my least favourite city in the U.K., too. I actually felt unsafe there.

I like Glasgow. Good pubs and restaurants and shops.

My ex was from there. 9.5 fat inches. A delight.

[quote]I like Glasgow. Good pubs and restaurants and shops.

There used to be a poster here from Glasgow who wrote long, beautiful posts about his city; they were really some of the best threads. That guy was so enthusiastic about his city he should've been on the Chamber of Commerce payroll (or whatever the UK equivalent is). I was briefly in Glasgow on my way to the Highlands & I thought the city looked like the UK version of Cleveland Ohio. I wish the Glasgow poster was still around to tell everyone how they were surviving during the pandemic.

The Merchant City in the centre of Glasgow is lovely, as is the West End.

Charles Rennie Mackintosh territory, plus lots of shipbuilding history.

The second city of the British Empire.

R194, you're not fooling anyone. A few shibboleths in there betraying your true origins.

Craig Ferguson is from Glasgow. I like him. He's good looking and funny. And he just moved back there, after selling his mansion in Los Angeles.

But some people from Glasgow... I just can't understand what they're saying.

R212 Don't worry. I don't.

My ex took me around the gay bars a few years ago, The Polo Lounge, Bennet's, Delmonica's and a Piano Bar. Well there were various Caberet acts on at the last place and the MC was introducing each one. I could not understand a word he said. Not one word. And I go to Scotland a lot.

Why are we discussing Glasghee in a thread about northern England?

We strayed across the border.

Back to Cumbria, Northumberland, Lancashire, Durham, North Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire.....

[quote] North Yorkshire, East Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire

In God's own country, we call them Ridings.

My racehorses are up there near Malton.

Beautiful part of the world.

Pardon my ignorance... does northern England include Bronte's Wuthering Heights country - the Lake Poets? Shakespeare hometown? What about Thomas Hardy and where he placed his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, etc?

Sorry to be stupid... but is northern England everything north of London -- or is some of that "Midlands" or whatever, which wouldn't count?

Here you go, R218.

R218 The North is anything north of Watford.

For those down south it is, but don't include us in the Midlands. Up north is still well above us here.

Thank you R219 and R220!

Pardon my ignorance... does northern England include:

Bronte's Wuthering Heights country - YES

The Lake Poets? - YES

Shakespeare hometown? - No. Stratford upon Avon is in the Midlands.

What about Thomas Hardy and where he placed his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, etc? - No. That's the West Country. Down south.

R211 well, alright Inspector Morse, you collared me. I’m not from the North, no. I am definitely English born and bred, though—check my post history or ask around, if you really want to go the creepy stalking route, all just to dismantle a sodding joke...

You won’t care, but for the record I wasn’t trying to “fool anyone” or obscure my “origins”. Why would I bother? My reply was meant as a tongue-in-cheek bit of character-based banter—something you’d recognise if you actually had mates.

Don’t know if you’ve heard of this concept, but there’s such a thing as playing a character, monologuing, having a bit of fun with someone else’s voice. DLers do it quite a bit, so if that comes as a surprise to you I have to assume either you’re new to the board or you don’t understand different styles of humour to your own.

It comes to something when you have to ask other posters to refrain from trying to doxx you over a throwaway bit of joke roleplay. Despair of some of you, honestly. Get a fucking life.

R224 Your post was shit. Get over yourself.

R218, everything north of Hyde Park is the North, darling. Ghastly places, most of them.

It makes me laugh that people are talking about Glasgow in a thread about NORTHERN ENGLAND.

Glasgow is in Scotland, you numpties. ;)

R220, the expression is "North of Watford Gap", which is some 67 miles north of Watford.

Watford / Watford Gap, who cares? Anything north of Watford is bad enough.

disagree R229, Edinburgh is very nice. York is nice. Cheshire. C'mon, you're just a fucking snob.

Has anyone here actually been to Watford? It is an unrivaled shite-hole.

[quote]Glasgow is in Scotland, you numpties. ;)

Yes, we know that, the mention of Glasgow made me nostalgic for the Passionate Glaswegian. So back to Northern England, is any discussion complete without mention of Myra Hindley & the Moor Murderers?

Some of my Northumbrian ancestors have the unusual name "Yellowly".

'Has anyone here actually been to Watford? It is an unrivaled shite-hole.'

Yes, I had to go to a dental hospital there. Horrible rundown chavvy place, although the indoor shopping centre could be worse. St Albans is close by but is completely different.

'Everything north of Hyde Park is the North, darling. Ghastly places, most of them'

I think not, darling.

Glasgow is a hell hole but Edinburgh is quite picturesque. Inverness has arctic temperatures. When I was 19 I went to visit a friend there in August. I'd lived all my life in London and our summers are fairly warm, with temps usually in the 70s or above in August. My friend was living by the beach so I packed shorts and swimwear. Started out at Kings Cross station at 10am with balmy temp of 76f and reached Inverness nine hours later and found the temperature was 55f! And it stayed that way the whole week, with plenty of rain.

Northumberland and Cumbria are beautiful counties. The Lake District and the Northumberland Coast with Holy Island are gorgeous.

The Lake District is beautiful but it rains there around 300 days of the year and spoils the views. You can't trust the weather even in the summer and the lakes are far too cold to swim in. I prefer the south coast for a holiday. Lulworth Cove is a beautiful turquoise bay. Any further west and you run into surfing territory, though. As a child, I used to swim off the beach at Eastbourne every August and the sea was about 68f at its warmest.

Most Brits take a two hour plane journey to Mallorca or Minorca for warm sea swimming and gorgeous sandy beaches. The Mediterranean's temperature is in the 80s all through July and August.

....or go to Skegness for a paddle.

Skegness has such a strange beach. Huge tides and the sea goes out for half a mile at low tide.

Yes. It's a massive expanse of beach.

A friend of mine from Aberdeen moved to London and said for the first time in her life, she bought summer clothes.

Which is interesting R242 as Aberdeen was marketed as a holiday resort in the mid last century.

It was discussed on Michael Portillo's railway program.

Aberdeenshire is sunny enough for one and one’s family to choose to spend the summer months there.

It’s close to Scotland.

I was sick and tired of everything

When I called you last night from Glasgow

Anyway we'd better get back south of the border to beautiful northern England.

Yorkshire, home of the Yorkshire Ripper--emblematic of grim, hopeless times in 1970s/1980s Northern England as Thatcherism dawned. "Yorkshire Noir" became a term in crime fiction. The ultimate example being a literary Hieronymous Boschian vision of violence, corruption, misogyny, and grim poverty in the "Red Riding Quartet" by David Peace. Film version for TV made it a trilogy. Northern England in that era was really the main character, and it's not pretty. The books are amazing, almost more horror than mystery/crime.

A Salvation Army band played.

And the children drank lemonade.

And the morning lasted all day.

All day.

The north of England is a conundrum. It has some of the most beautiful scenery in Britain. The Lake District, the North Yorks Moors and Dales. Charming towns, York, Harrogate, Scarborough.

Then it has those dark satanic mill towns.

Everyone calls everyone else 'luv', even the men.

One word: 𝙊𝙣𝙨𝙡𝙤𝙬

"The Strike" with Al Pacino as Arthur Scargill.

Stan and Hilda

Emmerdale v Coronation Street

r250 Most of the dark satanic mills have either been knocked down or turned into overpriced flats. We may have to write a third verse in Jerusalem to deal with the change.

The dark satanic mills are closed and everyone's on welfare cheques.

It's interesting one of my favorite ales is Newcastle Brown Ale. Used to be brewed there too. Now it's brewed in the U.S.

[quote] Newcastle Brown Ale is no longer available in the United States. A product labelled “Newcastle Brown Ale” is still sold but it is produced by Lagunitas Brewing Company and has little in common with the original product

r258 You guys apparently have a different version. Though that article also says the UK/EU breweries still export to America so I'm not sure.

The discussion about crime shows set in dreary northern towns reminded me of that awful story about Jamie Bulger, the toddler killed by a couple of older kids.

Aren't many Northern towns overrun by immigrants now?

Is this where the Chavs and Scallys are the hottest?

R260 My ex's ex worked on that case. It was truly horrific.

R261 They're not overun. The people are not immigrants. Go and take your race baiting elsewhere. It's not welcome in these green and pleasant lands.

R262 In my vast experience Liverpool is the prime location for those. Grey trackie bottoms, hands down the front, that kind of thing? If you were to go to Glasgow, they're called Neds.

R263, what did he do on the case? I find it chilling that supposedly James was sexually tampered with and then one of the boys, Jon Venables, was convicted twice as an adult for looking at child pornography.

R264 he was part of the crown prosecution team.

There was all sorts of equipment and materials used. It was quite horrible.

Yes, you're right about Venables.

What's the deal with all the ugly gasholders that litter the urban landscape?

Gas holders?

Since natural gas has been the norm, lots of gas holders have been decommissioned.

R261 R263 This is why we can't have anything nice. This Nativist insanity that, while always in the background, has raised its head in the second decade of the 21st century and excuses, encourages, promotes the most destructive and poisonous kind of hate.

I have a Latina friend who is asked "where are you from originally?" Her family came to what is now New Mexico.... in the 16th century. It's not just a white racist thing, of course. In Japan you are still a "foreigner" if you are not ethnically Japanese... even if you're family has been in Japan for several generations and speak flawless Japanese. Brexit was supported by some voters who were disturbed by "all those shops up on High St selling Polish products."

Northern England has the highest percentage of "white UK" population of the regions in the country... although 30% of Manchester is "non-white"... many now 3rd and 4th generation. Guess what? They're British.

^ your family

The North in action, linked.

Well, having read this thread, I now know that the North is full of satanic mills, and it is impossible to walk down the street without being stabbed or tripping over the millions of millions of muslims saying prayers in the middle of the road. Thank God I don’t have to live there - I just visit for holidays.

^ Ah, the English have such a talent — or perhaps propensity— for turning a blind eye to the unpleasant things around them.

It's easier nowdays when we have automobiles— we just turn up the radio, drive faster and ignore all the ugliness happening outside.

It was different in the old days.

I’m sure your eye takes in all the ugliness all around you every day, r272. Well done!

R272 In the old days before automobile? How the fuck old are you?

R274, R272, aged 59, clerk at the Ministry of Fisheries, means he can now afford a small car which he will have to give up on his imminent retirement.

A Northern education comprises of critical core lessons in general life-skills—learning to forage for foods in bins, to remove the tyres from parked cars, and to strip bark from trees with one’s teeth.

Posts like this will always encourage Southerners to broadcast their uninformed prejudice about the North of England. Most of them have never been there.

So what do we think of Boris's plans to 'level up' the North?

Given we've had the Northern Power House bandied around for some time with precious little to show for it, is it all bluster from BoJo?

Do you even need to ask?

The BBC made a long-running documentary to answer OPs question, so anyone seeking to know the true nature and raison d’être of the Northern tribes should really seek it out. It’s called Last of the Summer Wine.

[quote]So what do we think of Boris's plans to 'level up' the North? Given we've had the Northern Power House bandied around for some time with precious little to show for it, is it all bluster from BoJo?

That sounds like the UK version of MAGA

Machete attacks are frequent.

More machete action, this time in Burnley.

Burnley's only purpose is to give Blackburn and Preston the only place in the county they can feel superior to.

It's COVID central.

I know this is in Wales, but they border up somewhere right? Anyways, this thread made we think of the videos last year of wild animals invading towne centres and I thought how places like this, and I would think north England, are just a knife’s edge away from being reclaimed and falling back to nature and how quickly that could happen like those Life After People shows that a friend of mine makes me watch.

A Salvation Army band played. And the children drank lemonade.

R287 Lol, I posted that about 125 back and I didn’t even read to make sure it hadn’t already been done, which it probably has been. One of the most devastatingly perfect songs to capture an emotional moment, no matter how many times I hear it it causes a particular ache and sadness that I think is universal, unless it just unlocks something in us who have experienced it.

[quote] A Salvation Army band played. And the children drank lemonade.

I remember the band, but not the lemonade.

R286 Llandudno is definitely in North Wales, It shares the usual Welsh problem of being difficult to get to from the North of England.

It's about 80 miles from Manchester but would easily take 2 hours to travel there in normal traffic by car, by train nearer to 3 hours.

[quote] It's COVID central.

I thought that was Bolton.

Bolton's in the North.

Wales is an incredibly beautiful country yet seemingly depressed and full of alcoholics (not necessarily a bad thing, but still..); are there any area of Wales worthy of a post-COVID road trip?

R293 this is about northern England, not Wales. Start a Welsh thread if you must.

R293 Gwent is basically another county of England, green and lush and hilly. It’s peoples mainly with Southern English poshos, who were either too cheap to buy property in Surrey/Sussex or who wanted lots of space for dogs & ponies and don’t mind endless rain as a trade-off (seriously, it never stops fucking raining even in the height of summer, bad as the North).

Spoken like a true whitey r15

Here's a sight to see...

Indian COVID all over.

Fucking awful.

cold & wet?

Not as cold and wet as Cardiff or most of South Wales.

Hollyoaks always seems for the most part bright and clear, unless they have a big bubble over the outside town setting somehow?

R302 now I’m sad about JP & Craig again. Can’t believe that storyline is fifteen years old, now; I remember being a young teen watching it on the sofa after school.

HOLLYOAKS is filmed in a quiet leafy upmarket suburb of Liverpool, believe it or not. And I hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it, but it does seem to be curiously sunny there all the time. Suppose it’s hard to film in rubbish weather.

R303 Thanks you inspired me to look 8nto the studio and I found this:

They talk funny up there.

I have to admit I'm woefully ignorant about UK geography, so when I watch a British TV series I always have to open up Google Maps to get an idea of where it's set. What I find fascinating is that it seems like no matter where in England they are, it's always just a short trip on the train to London. I grew up in California where the two major population areas are at at least a seven-hour drive (and a full day's train trip) apart.

"What I find fascinating is that it seems like no matter where in England they are, it's always just a short trip on the train to London."

That's been true for a very long time. One thing that struck me about re-reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, is that even in the 1880s, Holmes could be anywhere in the country in a few hours! At the start of the 19th century, the only way to travel was by some sort of cart drawn by an animal, but in only by the time Jane Austen's heroines were old they'd have been taking the train to shop in London for an afternoon, instead of desperately hoping for an invitation to be driven there in a carriage and given guest room in someone's house.

Great Britain is a small place, but so densely populated that there's something of interest everywhere.

Take NC and VA and flip them so the coasts are at the bottom.

“Ooh...Northern boys *love* gravy.”

You posted the wrong one, R309. This is much more representative of the North.

R310 yes! That’s the one I couldn’t find. Cheers.

Once c. 2008 I tried to show SOCCER AM to an American acquaintance (exchange student from Georgia and friend of a highschool friend, who came round to my friend’s house while I was there one day), on her request to see a typically British programme. I put it on, providing no context.

Back then I watched it every Saturday for a few years, so I knew all the in-jokes and suchlike. However, that morning I stayed quiet out of sheer secondhand awkwardness for the other audience member watching with me. This girl was utterly baffled by the whole thing, sat in discomforted silence, and didn’t get one laugh or smile out of it. I’m not sure she even understood half of what was being said. To be fair, it was mad anarchy as TV goes, and the regional accents were broad.

Would love to know how she explained the experience to her mates back in America after she went home.

[post redacted because independent.co.uk thinks that links to their ridiculous rag are a bad thing. Somebody might want to tell them how the internet works. Or not. We don't really care. They do suck though. Our advice is that you should not click on the link and whatever you do, don't read their truly terrible articles.]

It is COVID central for the third wave, going in a westerly direction, at a town near you in the US soon.

^^ We're all vaxxed in the US, and not with that AstraZeneca shit.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote] We're all vaxxed in the US

Lol. Boris @R314 is obviously not in the US. More Minsk than Milwaukee, if you know what I mean.

R312 The Bastards will start to move them to my local hospital (Salford Royal) which is the nearest to them and one of the largest in the North-West of England, The total population of Salford is only 245,000 and this gargantuan hospital far exceeds local need.

When they start to die there it will trigger a local lockdown and we'll be fucked for another three months.

Why did the UK let the Indian variant in?

I think there are still more than 10 flights a day even now from the Indian Subcontinent to the UK, they are our largest ethnic minority,

Most of the people on them would be UK Citizens, they're British. We don't have the racial distinctions that the US does.

R319 There's no keeping Indians who are US citizens out of the US either. New US surge soon.

R319 I thought there were more Pakistanis than Indians.

Perhaps they are more noisy.

Just for clarity by 'Indian Subcontinent' I also meant to include Pakistan,Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, who have equally large outbreaks. Cases in Sri Lanka are also rising.

R321 the whole place is full of Muslims: Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Most Indians are not Muslims.

R322 there are very, very few Bhutanese in northern England. Back home they have the happiness index and northern England is not a part thereof; back home they also have a very, very beautiful king who is adorable.

R321 There is a category who for a time who were referred to as 'Ugandan Asians' they were mainly Gujarati in origin, but are often wrongly labeled as Pakistani. They were expelled from Uganda in 1972.

The so-called Ugandan Asians have at best very tenuous links with the sub-continent. They're not the so-called "Jet Set" super-spreaders. Regrettably, many people in the sub-continent regard their relations in the UK as the "Jet Set" even though many of them live in hovels in northern England.

R326 To be fair to the population of the Indian Subcontinent (outside of the major Cities) having relatives who don't shit at the side of the road might seem quite 'Jet Set'?

You don't exactly have to be wealthy to fly to India/Pakistan etc from the UK, it's less than £600 ($900) return.

The new owners of Asda (Walmart) in the UK are Northern (Blackburn) and have Gujarati origins.

[quote] The new owners of Asda (Walmart) in the UK are Northern (Blackburn) and have Gujarati origins.

Give them a knighthood, for services to COVID. Fortunately I don't shop at Walmart anymore.

Plague-ridden with Indian variant. If you live there and are healthy, leave for your country house now with your wives and children.

Plague country. I prefer Vegas.

R329 That wouldn't really work if your country neighbors are the Issa Brother's

[quote] the Issa Brother's

Goodness, gracious me!

Parts are lovely. I loved visiting Yorkshire and the city of York, which is beautiful and medieval.

Got a bit of a negative aversion to the North, since Durham, Exeter and York Universities turned me down rather brutally and at a tender age.

Bath, Cambridge, Canterbury all wanted me though, so there.

R334 I think they might have rejected you because your Geography is terrible.

Exeter is in Devon, about as far South as you can get

R335: Exeter might as well be up north. It's another fooking dump with one way streets and pedestrian 'precincts'. Northern England is really dominated by Muslim pedophiles who are tolerated by police scared of being called racist; lots of rampant COVID; Friday street prayers; minarets at dawn. You don't see much of all that on Coronation Street which is the fictional north, disgusting enough.

God's Own Country gives us the....Yorkshire variant ! They are filthy buggers up north, but they play good cricket.

R336 Coronation Street is based on Salford, Greater Manchester which is pretty much 'Whitey Town'.

Other ethnicities are way over represented on the show. Gay people outnumber ethnic minorities in Salford due to the proximity to Manchester City Centre.

Over 93 percent of the population are White British.

This is the largest Mosque in Salford (no purpose built ones exist).

Mosques in England are often not purpose-built. Some are old churches; then, when they get the money and the correct zoning, they build a minaret.

R339 The South Asian population of Salford is less than 4 percent (at least half are Hindu).

The total population of Salford is 240,000 in an area of 37sq miles.

Nobody is building a Minaret or Mosque.

R338 That sounds very much like the cast of Hollyoaks as well, how the hell did British daytime soap operas, that are actually at night?!?, get so woke?

So, is this where the Grand Old Duke of York is from, and which is his proverbial hill?

Richard, Duke of York

[quote] Glasgow is a hell hole but Edinburgh is quite picturesque. Inverness has arctic temperatures.

Jesus Fucking Christ. Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Inverness are not in England.

Do they say “Close your eyes and think of Scotland,” “Close your eyes and think of Wales,” and “Close your eyes and think of North Ireland” in those other places or do they stick with England as well?

R341 The City' Mayor of Salford is a White Gay man called Paul Dennett, currently serving his 2nd term.

He's a bit unfortunate looking though

R346 Is he the only gay in the village?

Dennett smells poor.

R347 No, R346 needs to tell us he is a 'White Gay man'.

R349 It was a continuation of previous posts about Salford not being very ethnically diverse and having a disproportionately large Gay population.

R350 ‘ang on, you what? What you on about, Salford ‘having a disproportionately large gay population’? Who the fuck’s said that, Redders? There’s obviously a snake in the camp. I’m not having that.

The Grand Old Duke of York was a Kraut who was also Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück in the Holy Roman Empire. He had very little to do with York in northern England.

R352 Well, ashes, ashes we all fall down, thanks for putting a damper on that.

In northern England we say, "A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down" R353.

Come on now, Salford is basically a suburb of Manchester. Let's not pretend it's something it isn't.

R354 I prefer Kleenex.

Salford is a right royal dump. Manchester, despite the £billions spent in regeneration, is still wanting. Interestingly they have a Piccadilly in Manchester. York also has a Piccadilly.

Hadrian's Wall is very scenic.

R357 Depends what part of Salford (or Manchester) you choose to live in?

This is Salford as much as any of the more urban areas are.

Pockets of Worsley are nice, but half of it is Little Hulton.

It's where Mr Brain turns faggots into meatballs.

What, pray tell, is a “rich west country sauce?”

R360 Salford Quays is also pretty spectacular (and expensive) if you like High-Rise living.

R362 Up north they think anywhere except the North is dead posh, even the West Country. So they cover their faggots in sauce, based on puréed pigs' testicles.

Home of the Yorkshire terrier.

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"Danielle Williams, 30, had attacked the female ambulance worker before she then turned on a police officer who tried to help her."

Clearly the party was a great success.

R318 Great explanation here as to why Bolton has become 'the leper colony of the North'.

I have an ancestor from Falstone, Noethumberland. Would like to see what it is like up there someday.

Vera captures a romantic but also gritty charm of Northern England, in the way I imagine it, at least near Newcastle. Any Vera watchers?

Do the southern English from the Home Counties have trouble understanding some of the Northern or Midlands accents? Are there any that are incomprehensible even to other English people?

R370 as someone from the South-West, the only British accent beyond my comprehension is very broad and thick Glaswegian (think Rab C. Nesbitt or Sonny the Snowball); that one is absolutely impenetrable to me.

Everything else though I get. Northern English accents aren’t difficult for me to understand at all.

R369 - wow, my ancestors are from Falstone, too! Way out nowhere, it seems. They were Scottish Presbyterians, really.

I’m reading Red Comet, the latest Sylvia Plath biography, and I’m getting the vibe that Ted Hughes was the epitome of the North England male at the time.

The Geordie accent is incomprehensible to outsiders when Geordie speaks to Geordie. It's designed that way. It's very exclusive.

R374 Interesting, are there many shibboleths that occur between the different groups?

R374 You can add most Northern Cities to that.

When I'm with my husband in other Countries where English is widely spoken (often an official language) all we have to do is revert to our normal (very fast) Manchester speech pattern to have a private conversation. They'd have more chance of understanding us if we spoke in Latin.

R370 The only English accent that I have a problem with is West-Country (Somerset, Devon, Wiltshire). It's not that I don't understand them it's just that it's so alien and slow compared to Northern accents that my mind wanders whilst they are speaking, I start doing mental Sudoku half way through a conversation.

A leper colony.

The pubs in Manchester have a staff shortage, there will be riots.

"'It's a problem that 'no one saw coming', industry experts say, and is a complete 180-degree turn from last year where redundancies landed thick and fast and people were struggling to find work."

Muslims don't go to pubs. What's the problem?

Northern England is set to go back into lockdown at this rate.

R380 You are probably correct.

Bolton isn't some isolated town, It borders Wigan, Bury and Salford (which borders Manchester City Centre).

Bury has seen a 79% increase in cases, Wigan around 23%.

In Greater Manchester we are just expecting the inevitable 4th Lockdown.

I think they'll just speed up the vaccinations before locking down again.

Can someone check on Scholesy and make sure he’s ok?

R382 They've already administered over 60million vaccinations (there are only 52million Adults).

Ethnic minorities seem to be the biggest group refusing the vaccine.

Brit men like to share

Fucked

R385 vile. Some of us Northerners actually prefer monogamy and domestic bliss. We’re not all jackals, thank you very much.

Covered with the Indian variant. Bye. Don't come the US.

The North may be covered with the Indian variant but…

… Mahbub Chowdhury is cooking down in the south-west.

Eat shit.

I’ve never understood the lyric “Manchester, England, England...” in Hair? WTF are they talking about that for Claude?

It is a threat to the end of lockdown in the UK.

R392, is it likely that the lockdown will be extended if the Indian variant spreads more rapidly in the UK than it already is? Or will you guys come out of lockdown regardless and just deal with the infection rates going up?

No COVID deaths in the UK today, first time since March 2020; that includes the North.

That's great, R394, especially given the Indian variant.

The Indian variant is now called something neutral R395. Delta?

Great to see that WHO is on top of things, when it really matters!

According to the new naming system, the variant B.1.1.7, which was first discovered in the United Kingdom, will now be called Alpha;

the B.1.351 variant first discovered in South Africa will be called Beta;

and the B.1.617.2 variant first discovered in India will be called Delta.

Once all 24 letters of the Greek alphabet have been used, WHO said it will announce another naming system.

There is gamma somewhere: Brazil?

Yes, Sr Pedro - Brazil = P.1 = Gamma.

Hey fool, Pedro II was the Emperor of Brazil (Gamma)

I was trying to show due respect with the Sr (Senor) because I didn't know how to say Your Majesty in Spanish (and too lazy to look it up.)

I'm most dreadfully sorry.

Google is your friend, Trumptard at R401

Oh and to bring it back around -- did His Majesty ever visit northern England? Wonder if it reminded him of the rainforest? Isn't there a lot of rain there? (though I spent a year in Dublin and though it drizzled nearly every day, it never thunderstormed, like what I was used to in the Gulf South)

I beg your pardon, R402 - I've never voted for a Republican in my life, going back to Carter vs. Demon Reagan in 1980, when I was finally old enough to vote against the monsters.

OTOH, your manners are very reminiscent of a Trumptard, dare I say.

Kudos to R404 for being willing to admit he's at least 60.

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[quote] “Close your eyes and think of North Ireland”

I think the rest of the UK and the Irish Republic as well would prefer to forget all about NI.

Northern Ireland is like a boring, racist, whiter version of “the North”. Makes you yearn for the North of England.

No BBC “Vera” fans on here? Love the cinematography of the Newcastle/Northumberland area in that show—even the gritty industrial shots.

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Dreary ,wet, grey, grimy, underdeveloped.

I took the bus from London to Edinburgh. We stopped in Morpeth, Northumberland, or at least that's what they said - all I saw was the thickest fog I've ever been in. The grey sky touched the earth, you literally couldn't see anything.

I’m planning a little trip in September/October to Lancaster for a couple of days, followed by a few days in the Lake District, probably Ambleside at the head of Windermere to visit Rydal Mount.

You’re allowed to go to England now? I didn’t think restrictions were lifted. And with the variant exploding, I’d be wary of booking a trip with the expectation that it will be wide open in the next month.

I’m in the UK, r414, double vaccinated, and optimistic that things will be better in October. If they are not, I may cancel, but a trip away before the winter hits is very tempting.

R31, I've always wanted to be in England on Guy Fawkes Day!

'Tis my birthday (1949), as well!

R413, Ambleside is lovely!

R410, Don't get me started! The DM insists on calling these criminals "Asians," when the salient commonality is, well, the obvious.

R411 you seem parochial and untraveled. I think you’ll find it’s London that is grey, grimy and dreary (and so are the people). At least we have fresh air and natural beauty in the north. I’m not sure what you mean by “underdeveloped”, it’s as developed as the rest of Northern Europe/U.K. Get out more.

^Of course you're right. My apologies.