h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ah, so you'll be one of those famous 'unhelpful Londoners' that peiople are talking about on this thread.

Take that back. I am not a Londoner.

I had to walk to work this morning from Liverpool Street to Waterloo due to the tube strike- a 40 minute walk which I will consider doing again as it was very pleasant. The atmosphere, river, wonderful buildings, and it's not even the best part of London for these things. Commuting can be horrible - especially when hot - but I would not really consider working away from it as I love it. I don't live in it though - I am half an hour away from Liverpool Street by train but being outside the M25 and address or borough not being London means I don't live there. Best of both worlds.
I think some people are resentful of what's available in London or just don't realise ! Just read Time out - a thick weekly magazine dedicated to what's on in London. Just think of all the theatres - OK other towns have these but only a tiny fraction of what's on offer in London and you're stuck with whatever type of show they are offering.
We were in town last Saturday and we were literally overwhelmed by the choices we had for eating out and things to do - and not just one of each category (eg comedy club, theatre, latin american dance, nightclub) Smaller places have a fraction of choice - if the Italian's bad or the nightclub's dodgy you're stuck.
I know nightlife isn't the be all and end all so think of all there is to do in the day and once again you are overwhelmed.
I too am sick of people London bashing. No-one's asking you to live there but you could be putting overseas readers off !

Personally, I don't think there's enough London bashing, and I won't/don't live there. Although, I have to say, if traffic warden strikes were a little more frequent, it would be a nicer place
As for putting off foreign visitors, well, you got me. I'm a secret agent of the Cardiff Tourist Board, obviously.

It's not a *bad* place.
However! the insistance that it's absolutely the finest place ever to be immortalised on a Monopoly board, gets tiresome. Some features are horrendous and it itself is just not right for some of us. (Despite general opinion it is not easy to get to by public or private transport and that sort of negates all the activities on offer.) Fine also, if it were not for the comments of *some* residents that the rest of the country is s***e and can therefore be justifiably ignored.

No one's asking us to live there- but neither do they live here.

Oh..you mean like the one I heard on the bus this morning indicating that there isn't actually anything North of the Watford gap....And until now I had just theought that a lame joke....

Per se, there is nothing 'wrong' with london, if you have the time, the money and the helicopter, and somewhere else to live. As I am a student I have to live in Peckham because I can't really afford anywhere else, I take the bus cos I can't afford one of those ever so helpful 'travelcards'every month. Going to the theatre or out clubbing or enjoying the 'nightlife' is restricted becasue of limited funds...and having to wealk back through Peckham at night.

OK...I don't HAVE to live here. I fully admit that I am not a city type person (or at least Nodnol...I LOVED living in Glasgow) But even so...I have valid reasons for not liking the place, so I am not just indulging in a bit of bashing here. I am actually expressing an opinion.

Oh OK...I usually just bash, cos structured arguement is too much like hard work...

Every time I go to London I come back to find my snot has turned black. That can't be good. As an asthmatic, I also find myself coughing after about half a day there. I dread to think what effect it would have on my health to live there.

There is nothing in London that interests me that I cannot get where I live. If I want art, I can go to Warick Arts Centre, for the gallery and the theatre. If I want live music, I can go to any number of local venues, or the NEC and NIA for bigger events. For conferences and shows, there's the NEC. Petrol only costs 75p/litre where I live at the moment, there are genuine green fields only a short walk away.

London serves a purpose, though. If you like that sort of thing. What really gets my goat is the colossal arrogance of many Londoners concerning 'the north'. (We in the midlands are consistently referred to as being in the north. This has not driven any of us to kill. Yet). It's even institutionalised; the national news displays the bias. I can buy a copy of the Big Issue and discover what fantastic events are happening in London. What? This is the Birmingham edition, for the love of apples!

Sorry. Rant over. I'll get my breath back, now.

Of course, there are those who would say that calling Birmingham 'The North' is a compliment as the North is, however marginally, preferable to the Midlands.

Why I oughta-

We don't have whippets and we don't race pigeons .

No indeed, but you did (the Midlands, not Birmingham) give the world Frank Skinner.
Which a sin beyond the wildest imagination of Lucifer himself.

I like Frank. He looks like he's about to drop dead of starvation any minute. His talk show was poor, though.

Worse: our borough spawned Mary Whitehouse.

Don't forget Jasper Carrot.

My GF's dad looks like him.

I will concede that he does, although he does NOT look like Chow Yun Fat.

I like the North, what I have seen of it, and do not mind being mistaken for it. Must be because we say 'Ay up' and 'cobs' etc. It is true about the friendly locals. Although where does the North begin, is there an official line?
It astounds me that the national press can run an article about some simpering London bint who went 'up north' and wrote a 'hilarious' account of how she totally refused to like it. Including such gems as, 'It always rains- my pashmina is ruined.' and, reminiscing about how she misses Blacksnot, 'I miss fashion- it doesn't exist in the North.'

I'd define the 'North' as the line where you no longer see signs to 'the North'. I'm not sure exactly where this is. I do know it's somewhere north of Leicester on the M1, though.

You could that definition for anything, really. I like it. It's durable and wipe-clean.

If you are going by that citeria, then that line is North of Glasgow and Edinburgh...and I'm sure I've seen those signs in Dundee, and Aberdeen.
According to the Londoners I know...the designation "up North" starts at the Watford gap and doesn't stop...even when you hit my own home country....

But for this lot, I'm from about as north as it gets (pathetic really, I'm frae Falkirk.....in the Central Belt..)

Bet Londoners don't even know that the gap is named for the village of Watford nearby.

Watford Gap! You're scarcely in the Midlands by then! North my foot.

I'm pretty sure you still see signs for 'A1 - The North' as far as Yorkshire. In which case 'The North' would be Scotland, or maybe Norway?

would it be no more enlightening to ask where the South begins?

Anywhere south of the Watford Gap, obviously.