Interesting how the North is criticised, but looking at the lists in the replies they mostly contain Southern locations as being the worst. A survey conducted in Spring of this year(top British cities for visiting) had three northern cities in the top five, the top one was a Scottish City and then Newcastle, Durham and York (I can not remember which other City made it into the top 5). London didn't even make it into the top twenty. The survey was completed by British readers of a serious newspaper.

Yes David, the Giant's Causeway IS in Ireland and always has been, long before the English invaded..

Ah my oppressed norther brothers. Greetings from the sunny south (and it is today)<BR><BR>The Giants Causeway is in Northern Ireland. I was using a language technique called analogy. Using the good doctor's words to explain a point.<BR><BR>Not your fault I know...what with being down t'pit since you were seven. <BR><BR>Regards<BR><BR>Lord David of London.

Dear Lord David<BR><BR>I think you'll find the correct expression is "Northern Monkeys"<BR><BR>Oi! And leave off Brighton! <BR><BR>Bloody cockneys!

Brighton is where people who couldn't make it in London go to die, or turn in to Julie Burchill.<BR><BR>Its the little pool for the little fish.<BR><BR>Give my regards to quentin cook, have you cleaned up yet?<BR>

At least this one hasn't turned into a slanging match about foreign policy.<BR><BR>The clean up after Mr Fatboy's event is complete.<BR><BR>We are now mainly waiting for the next mob of pilled up, pikey, day-tripping cockneys w******S to come down and mess up our small pool once more. <BR><BR>Each and every one of them clearly being a "big-fish" who's made it in the smoke. <BR><BR>You can tell this by the quality of their biro and razor blade tattoos, and the quantity of White Lightening they consume.

The problem with quentins party proved various things.<BR><BR>Brighton couldn't organise a p*ss up in a brewery.<BR><BR>If you want to buy pills of a quality that would have you strung up from a lampost in any where serious, Brighton it is.<BR><BR>Any I'll take our pilled up pikeys over Brightons pasty faced, shoplifting, begging, smackheads anytime. Most of the population of Brighton look like they've been underwater for two days or they live underground. <BR><BR>Even the big Issue sellers couldn't make it in London<BR><BR>I've said it once and I'll say it again. It's deptford-on-sea.<BR><BR>

"Lord" David and Spoon - you just crack me up - I wonder what our American friends make of this London-Brighton bloodletting

Erm....The party was supposed to be a Brighton thing, went last year with 30,000 people with no hassle.<BR><BR>This year, radio one, the evening standard, the sun, and god know's who else decided of their own backs to publicise it, and we have an invasion of pikeys, cackers, dids and oiks heading down for a free party on the beach, rather than smoking crack, knocking up teenagers, robbing mobile phones and stabbing each other in the more delightful backwaters of your big pond, such as streatham, stockwell, hounslow and harringey.<BR><BR>can't argue with pasty faced, shoplifting, begging, smackheads, however they're all cockneys, sweaties, mancs and scousers. <BR><BR>the people who look like they've lived underwater would be day-tripping cockneys again. <BR><BR>and again it reminds you of deptford, because it's full of day tripping cockneys.<BR><BR>the worst thing about brighton is daytripping cockneys, and i would suggest you came down in the week, however that would mean another day tripping cockney too many..<BR><BR>be interested to know in what way you have made it, and which delightful part of london you live in<BR><BR><BR>

For the Brighton/London Challenged (ie anyone not from there) here is a brief description of Brighton.<BR><BR>Imagine a once small and admittedly attractive seaside town full of horny handed fisher folk living fulfilling lives, having nothing to do with the media or advertising or indeed PR.<BR><BR>Nor spending their days in the DSS claiming tha they've lost their giros (sold for a bag of smack). Nor getting their dirty faced children tattoed or selling lucky heather (if it's that lucky why are they in Brighton)<BR><BR>Then add one fat german. He builds a ridiculous pavilion and briefly (oh so briefly) Brighton is the place to be (this is in 1815). <BR><BR>Its downhill all the way from here folks....<BR><BR>Since then they have surrounded the big tent (think Millenium dome furnished in woolies) with every kind of pov pad and pleb palace.<BR><BR>The housing is minging, every pub or club is full of coked (actually speed, but they don't know the difference) losers going on about their next "project" (Go to Job Centre fill in UB40 get housing benefit for overcrowded hovel full of mongs that they are forced to live in).<BR><BR>There is one genuinely first class building in the whole swamp, the West Pier, but unfortunatley the mongs burned it down 30 years ago and its STILL DERELICT. Its a pier folks! Its on top of the English Channel (ie the bloody sea) and they couldn't work out how to put out a fire !!!!<BR><BR>To be fair, judging from the smell most of them aren't familiar with the use of water.<BR><BR>It's football club was so manky it had to play in Gillingham.<BR><BR>Nowadays the only rock you can buy in Brighton is crack.<BR><BR>The reason that people steal our mobile phones is so that they can be sold to you south coast gypsies. You couldn't afford new ones. Not after spending all your benefit on scratchcards and oven chips.<BR><BR>And the reason so many of my fellow citizens (you're not a city remember) came down to the plague pit is that your bloody council asked us to!!<BR><BR>They spent a fortune trying to get us to come down to reinflate your weimar republic level economy with our loads-a-money wallets. <BR><BR>I've just had a look at the Argus' website. The locals are up in arms about telephone poles (Its on page one - I told you it was an exciting place).<BR><BR>Just wait till they find out about electric light.<BR><BR>your turn spoon old chap<BR><BR>Lord Dave of Southfields (Next to the All England Tennis Club, which counts as making it).

Lord David is a fraud! From Surrey no less!!<BR><BR>Handy for the All English Tennis Club, as well as Wandsworth nick, and the tram to Croydon. My word you have you arrived! <BR><BR>Are you living in one of those delightful period tower blocks?<BR><BR>I don't recally Johnson saying "He who is tired of the Greater London Metropolitan area is tired of life" although he should have as most of the population therein is justifiably tired of both.<BR><BR>I'm not sure where to replying to your attack on Brighton as I don't believe you've been there. And since you live in Wandsworth, you really don't have a leg to stand on.<BR><BR>There is no housing around the pavillion.<BR><BR>Err it's nicer than Wandsworth (where isn't) and the front page of the Wandsworth has a story about whether the members of a local housing association are allowed to use the path behind their houses, and unemployment is way lower than than WANDSWORTH, the driveby shooting capital of Greater London.<BR><BR>Brighton IS a city and I would ask which city you live in? The Royal City of Upper Tooting perchance?<BR><BR>Brighton and Hove Albion are so manky they have been promoted twice in two seasons, and are currently number 5 in the first division, above you local Wimbledon at a derisory 18. <BR><BR>Personally one lives in a grade 2 listed Regency Gothic Castle (no bull)<BR><BR>Personally I think the solution to this discussion, is rather than widening the M25, block the exits, have it deepened, then fill it with boiling tar.

David your take on Northern England is SARDONIC...not IRONIC. Irony is a subtle pretense used to relay an opposite meaning...so are you saying the North is actually GREAT???

thanks guys, you've cheered up my day.<BR><BR>Kate of County Kilburn

I can't believe I read the whole thing and hardly understood a word--and English is my first language!!!<BR><BR>Any Americans understand any of what the previous postings were saying? LOL!!!!<BR><BR>There sure is a lot more separating us than the pond!!!!<BR><BR>Minging?! Mongs?!! Manky?!! <BR><BR>Are these guys pulling our legs or are they using real words?!!! <BR><BR>Doesn't matter--reading their posts has been a blast!!

Real words indeed,<BR><BR>Awight Dave, me old mockney sparrer, how yer diddling, lawks a lummy guvnor, you're a toff, apples and pears, two and eight, boat race, apples and pears, Old Kent road, ping pong tiddley, nuclear sub, want to buy a dog?<BR><BR>Where are you?<BR><BR>Propping up the bar at the old Bollocks and Barrowboy with Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins listening to Chas and Dave thumping out Mrs Mills covers and a selection of your Tommy Steele favourites, "roll out the barrel", "maybe it's because I'm a Londoner" and "I ate you Enry Iggins" at the top of your head, washing down jellied eals and pickled eggs and pie and mash with pints of watneys red barrel reminiscing about your pick pocketing school days with the Krays who weren't propper criminals because they only killed their own and Jack the hat was asking for it anyway and the spirit of the blitz and powdered egg and how you miss the doodlebugs and wasn't the Queen mum a lovely lady <BR>Lets face it, Southfields is hardly within the sound of Bow Bells, the current range of which is about thirty feet given the noise of the traffic, roadworks and bladdered hoorays shrieking from the numerous champagne bars. The last proper cockney to be born within the sound of Bow Bells is living in Jakarta and speaks not one word of English, his Indonesian mother having prematurely given birth on the top of a double decker on Cheapside, stuck in traffic on route to Liverpool Street in 1978. Your not even on the right side of the river, Saaf Landan, not being London at all as everyone knows, you're not on a tube line and your even the wrong side of the South Circular. I ask you! Next thing you now Peterborough will have an 0208 phone number and the residents will be sewing thousands of buttons on their clothes, sticking their thumbs in their braces, doing the lambeth walk (oi) and addressing each other as "me old china".<BR><BR>When thinking of South London urban sprawl, insensitive town planning, brutalist architecture, police no-go areas, yardies, crack dens, failing schools, rat-boy, pregnant teenagers, lumpen-proletarians and post-industrial blight are phrases that spring to mind.<BR><BR>Your turn sir<BR><BR>

Give me a minute spoon old chap. I am at work at the moment (foreign concept on the travellers site, I know, but each to his own eh?)<BR><BR>

Yes I'd love to buy a dog, and I'll take that Nuclear sub off your hands too (but I'm cutting me own froat here and no mistake).<BR><BR>It's Lunchtime here in the great Wen, and I am avoiding jellied eels (because they are the devils work) in favour of LArk's tongues in aspic.<BR><BR>I suspect you buy these in bulk at your local Netto or Kwik-Save.<BR><BR>Now Spoon old chap; have you been drinking paint again? I know you never seem to get these things quite right down there. Remember when you smoked petrol and burned down the pier?<BR><BR>Brighton is no more a city than it is a culture capital (Unless penicillin at the local GUM clinic counts as a culture). <BR><BR>It had to ask (yes ask, beseach, request, plead) for City status and got it at the same time as Preston. So you know what league you're in (It's also twinned with Chernobyl). You're better than Grimsby. Be content.<BR><BR>The city "Charter" is as valid as a mail order medical degree.<BR><BR>It cost poor little tiddler-town literally millions of Pahnds (&pound;s) in advertising and lobbying to be as good as Preston.<BR><BR>I agree about mockneys being a royal pain in the chad, but imitation is the sincerest form of flattery innit?<BR><BR>I have yet to here anyone putting on an adenoidal sussex accent.<BR><BR>Southfields IS on the tube you bumpkin! It's on the district line Mr Hayseed.<BR><BR>Wandsworf is the third richest borough in Britain with the lowest council tax and the most Tory council. Admittedly there are still some diddicoys left from the bad old days, but we are driving them out by a ruthless process of turning every shop into a delicatessen.<BR><BR>I know you tried a similar trick with all night kebab vans.<BR><BR>I never met Ronnie and Reggie (I never ever ever go East) But given Ronnies "alternative lifestyle" its a fair bet he was familiar with soddom-on-sea.<BR><BR>And every fing youu say abaht Sarf Lahndahn is true of Sarf-East. But rememebr this spoon, my paint-drinking chum. They're all still doing better than you!<BR><BR>I'm enjoying this.<BR><BR>The Duke of Earlsfield<BR><BR><BR>

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oh my dear god, are you a Wykehamist?....I am an alumnus of Romsey Road Secondary Modern myself. Once this most enjoyable of spats is over we shall have to compare notes on who notched up the most Swithunites....Do you still play the biscuit game?<BR><BR>I am rather disturbed at how frequently I am asked if I drink paint. The answer is no. Butane is my tipple of choice, and failing that a nice long line of flea powder.<BR><BR>I will have to disabuse of you of some notions about Brighton, which is honestly and joking aside, more salubrious than the bulk of Wandsworth, This should also give you some more accurate amunition for you wit. (not least of all the sitting MP being called Lepper)<BR><BR>By some hideous twist of fate, which must be some karmic revenge for some unimaginably heinous crime i commited in a past life, i had the extreme displeasure of living in Battersea for three years, so I know of what I speak.<BR><BR>There is no Lidl, Netto or Kwiksave that I know of, and the only burger van I know of is run by David Van Day, of Dollar and Bucks Fizz fame, who has now found an appropriate outlet for his insubstantial talents.<BR><BR>People do indeed imitate the adenoidal sussex whine, as at the drop of hat most people will break into a Chris Eubank impersonation, Brighton's most famous son. And yes, he is a pratt and it's all been said before.<BR><BR>There are people who fit the stereotype you have, however if you insist on hanging around West Street, the seafront and the pier on a bank holiday, the bulk of them will truly be imports. Our own pikeys rarely venture forth, assaulting the odd gentleman with a shaved head, large moustache and the seat cut out of his leather trousers, preferring to spend their time on their estates, which are well out of the way, torching cars, tattoing their faces, inflicting multiple body piercings on their infants and injecting skag into their groins.<BR><BR>For the rest of it, Brighton is undergoing the same gentrification as Wandsworth, with commuters with London salaries (like me) forcing the cackers further to the periphery. Check out the house prices. <BR><BR>It's not quite there yet, but you really are looking at Kensington-by-sea, rather than Deptford.<BR><BR>Inicidentally Ken Livingstone has a house in Brighton, where he stays at the weekend rather than stay in London. Great PR Ken!<BR><BR>The real Brighton stereotype you should be aiming at is the astrology obsessed macrobiotic middle class hedgemonkey surviving on henna tattooing, hair braiding, selling sub-standard ethnic jewellery, shiatsu massage and street performing (the only real performing beyond making arses of themselves they actually do is when they sign on pretending that they don't have have a dozen forms of earning their pittance off the cards), attempting to save up enough money so they can go and find themselves in Guatamala, then come back twice as irritating as before trying to impress you with their pidgin spanish and hand woven trousers.<BR><BR>There is a whole area of town known as the "Brown Rice belt" where this scourge concentrate.<BR><BR>You never mentioned the gays, which is what Brighton is most famed for. Kemptown AKA Camptown.<BR><BR>Apologies for the lack of wit, but it is last thing on a Friday.<BR><BR>Enjoy the stinking hot weather and polution this weekend, I'm going to sip a daquiri on a quiet spot on the beach in a cooling sea breeze.