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

Well, I was born and bred in Gateshead and lived there for 22 years (barring a 3-year stint at uni in Durham), and so I'm well versed in the ins and outs of Newcastle. However, because I couldn't find a decent job, I've had to move down south to bloody Bedford in order to earn some decent cash. Economic regrowth? My rectum.

Ah, if its not Grendel the beer drinking beer drinker. The famous Biggs McBiggs. Ladies and Gentlemen, please salute one of Tyneside's finest. A man who knows when he's had enough... and carries on. A man who slags off pink tents, spots Richard Branson stuck up trees and has a mate who drinks ten cans of Red Bull and spends all night running around a music festival campsite in his dressing gown.

Ithangyew.

The point of moving south to find work is a pertinent one though. Newcastle is pretty neglected by all these so called regeneration schemes our government runs. Unemployment is the norm rather than the exception... I speak from experience. My husband has been on the dole for 3 years despite being a graduate with ten years diverse employment history. Several members of my family have been on the dole ever since NEI Parsons made masses redundant in the early 90s. I applied for 20 jobs a week for 2 years and finally got a 6 month 12 hours a week contract. (But they have taken me on permanently now- ) Too many people have to leave for the south or Scotland to find work.

But it won't get any better till government and commerce becomes more decentralised. It's a fact of the current system that London and the south-east are where big business is centred, at least the parts that aren't manufacturing. Until this trend is reversed, people like me have to make the difficult choice between a job earning 12k a year up north and a job earning 20k a year down here. Even taking into account the differences in living costs, it's still quite a difference!