Did MH know about the Daily Mail printing this story? I blame him and he should be sacked IMMEDIATELY!!!!!
I have and I agree entirely. I generally find Northerners will go out of their way to accommodate you, it's almost like America in that aspect. No matter how bad things are or how crap their day has been they'll put on a brave face and treat you like their own. I find in the Midlands and down South people wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. People will happily make pregnant women and elderly men/women stand on a packed train and not feel two ways about it. That said I wouldn't generalise too much. I find in many Parts of South and East London there is much more of a community spirit and togetherness than in other parts but that's just my experience I'm not talking generally.
North - Lancashire, Yorkshire, North-East, Cumbria, North Lincs. Midlands - Cheshire, West Midlands, East Midlands, South Lincs. Southern Fairies - Home Counties, London, South Coast. Southern Farmers - West Country, East Anglia. NB: I hate people who don't think the Midlands exists and calls people e.g. from Birmingham Northerners or Southerners. To be fair, most Northerners I grew up with recognized that much of London is a total hellhole and could appreciate that there's a lack of opportunity in certain places in the Capital and some surrounding places like Luton. But if you told me there was poverty in places like Crawley, Oxford, Ipswich and other gentle-sounding places, I'd have thought you were mad. So maybe your observation is right to an extent. Then again, I doubt many born-and-bred Southerners would know that Leeds and Sheffield contain some of the most affluent areas in the country, so it's a two-way street. I'd agree there. Even in a big city like Leeds, people are a lot more affable and helpful than in London. Last time I was in the Big Smoke, I literally had to ask 12 different people how to get to a pub which turned out to be 15 yards round the corner, because none of them could take 10 seconds out of their hectic lives to dignify my efforts with a response. Thanks, cockneys. If I'd done that in an equivalent area of any northern city, I don't believe a single person would have totally blanked me - they'd at least have had the decency to say 'sorry, I can't answer you right now, I have to be somewhere'. Ultimately, I suppose living in a concrete jungle of that size has a very desensitizing and dehumanizing effect on many of the people who live there, especially people who've moved there rather than been brought up there. On Emmerdale, many of them are Lancastrians and Mancs, so the Yorkshire accent isn't very accurately portrayed. On Tories. Both sides of my family come from working class backgrounds which are staunchly conservative and anti-socialist. One side from the satanic mills of Bradford, the others from the farmland of Worcestershire. It's very hard to characterize the demographic of a political party which encompasses such a large cross-section of the English and Welsh public. I ****ing hate them though, let it be said. On Diakite, I think if players are depressed and can't play, they shouldn't be paid. For players of that nature, a pay-as-you-play contract seems fairest, so the club doesn't haemorrhage money. The man has enough dough to take care of himself in his dark days. If he keeps taking money to sit at home in the mean-time, it undermines the team work ethic. And I'm all for QPR medical staff helping him and getting him world-class psychiatric support to hopefully help him fight that awful disease. That's where the money's best directed. TTFN.
Ipswich doesn't have the particular highs or lows of somewhere like Oxford (and yes it has both) and has no reputation (founded or otherwise) for being posh and full of academics. Poverty in these parts has been bypassed by teenage pregnancy (now seemingly a profession) and alcoholism with the generous government handouts these provide.
My mate from Ipswich says it's a fairly boring, constant place as well. No real slums to speak of. I can believe somewhere as big as Oxford (or its academic sister city Cambridge) would have poverty; I just find it hard to picture with the images of pristine courtyards and princely colleges that immediately spring to mind.
The centres of Oxford and Cambridge are mainly University owned hence the postcard images but they need to be serviced hence the expanded areas outside that are mixed to say the least.
Back to the matter in the title of the thread... It's appalling that with the Leveson Enquiry still fresh in the memory, our newspapers still feel able to smear and defame innocents such as Samba Diakite. I wonder when the Mail's Sami Mokbel will write a retraction of his inaccurate report and whether it will be as prominent as the original piece. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2199439/Samba-Diakite-fighting-depression.html http://www.football.co.uk/queens_park_rangers/diakite_dismisses_depression_reports_rss3536832.shtml
Mokbel is a tosser, always has been and probably always will be. Don't expect anything out of him. Will probably print a piece saying that MH and TF "demanded that Diakite returns to Loftus Road or be fined". So when Diakite does turn up he can say "Look, I told you that they had demanded his return". I have NO respect for politicians and journalists as they lie and cheat consistently. They don't care about anyone other than themselves. (I also hate taxi drivers, but that's because many of them can't drive properly and think that they own the road. ..... but that's another story.)
Strangely, in London, these types of opposites are common, often in within the same postal areas. In SW9 Brixton/Stockwell there are £1 million houses and Grotty run-down council flats. Leafy affluent Dulwich Village is less than two miles from some of the worst slum housing and sink estates of Peckham. In fact you could say London is every extreme...
Where I live, you have a massive council estate, turn a corner and you have the most exclusive area in the city. Oh and when you live on the south coast, everyone is a northerner, even those on London.
To be honest Sooper the whole of London is a melting pot of opposites. I attempted to do the London Knowledge for 3 years and it always amazed me how you could be in the most dangerous, scum filled area one second and literally 30 seconds down the road are 3/4/5 million pound mansions. Also how the different communities stuck together was pretty weird. If you travel northwards from Stoke Newington you could be in Istanbul, then in 1 minute be in Israel (Stamford Hill) on to Africa 30 seconds later (Tottenham).
Can't agree more, this is what I was saying earlier in the thread about the difference between South and North. Clapham is another prime example where you have rich and poor closely integrated in the same communities.
The difference may be that Northern towns and cities were often impacted very strongly by the Industrial Revolution in terms of where the good housing is and where the **** stuff is. Inner City areas are predominantly red-brick houses of former mill/factory workers, although you'll get trendy brownfield sites popping up all over the place in hip cities like Leeds and Newcastle. A little further out, you might get Victorian houses of modest size, where foremen and bourgeoisie lived a hundred years or more ago. Then you get to the green belt which is very affluent and you'll see those newbuild cream-coloured monstrosities along with mansions and large semi-detached houses. So there is a certain... economic apartheid. You'll find this even in smaller places like Halifax, Darlo, Accrington and others. In London, other than along the riverbank, I doubt industry had such a huge effect on the cityscape.
I fear Nick Clegg's already done that with his teary-eyed eulogizing of the Steel City in any rag that will listen to him.
