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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The final PB/Polling Matters Podcast of 2016: Looking back at an incredible and unpredictable political year

On this week’s episode of the PB/Polling Matters show Keiran Rob and Leo look back at 2016 and discuss the results from the recent survey of PB/Polling Matters listeners where more than 600 people took part. We discuss what our biggest shock of 2016 was, who the biggest winners and losers were and our defining moments of 2016. We also take some time to read out some comments from listeners and mull over what 2017 might bring.

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Philip_Thompson

First like every underdog in 2016.

JosiasJessop

Distant second.

Scott_P

Fourth, like Labour...

Floater

Scott_P said:

Fourth, like Labour...

But that's ok, they were worried they might come 5th.

Alistair

Leicester rugby side trying to match the performance of the football team

dr_spyn

Fifth, not even Corbyn has managed that in a Westminster election.

rottenborough

dr_spyn said:

Fifth, not even Corbyn has managed that in a Westminster election.

Yeh, but he's certainly working on it.

Fishing

For me, unoriginally enough, the biggest surprise this year was our voting to leave the EU. I always thought we'd leave eventually, as we are completely out of sympathy with the direction the EU is headed, and it had very little popular support in England, but until the last few weeks before the vote, I didn't believe we'd do it this time. I thought we'd probably leave because of the referendum lock a few years down the line.

With hindsight, we should have left in 1991 or 92 when it first became clear we and the EU were heading in different directions, and before the EU had its tentacles in quite so many parts of our national life. But we didn't, and it is now more intrusive and difficult to leave because of that.

An almost equally big shock has been our failure to fall into a recession, although of course there's always time for that down the line. The exchange rate has taken the strain, vindicating our decision to stay outside the Euro once again.

Morris_Dancer

Mr. Fishing, I was more surprised by the Trump result than the EU one. That said, Rosberg retiring was even more surprising

Fishing

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Fishing, I was more surprised by the Trump result than the EU one. That said, Rosberg retiring was even more surprising

Funnily enough, I was less surprised by that one. Firstly, a shrewd American friend of mine predicted he'd win last December (and my friend backed Apple in 1996), and secondly, TV stars do well in personality-driven elections (Boris, Schwarzenegger). Not saying I wasn't surprised, just less so.

dr_spyn

Foxes on fire.

JosiasJessop

You squeeze the balloon, and it pops up elsewhere.

Islamic State fighters 're-enter ancient Palmyra' in Syria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38275905

Bu**er.

Fishing

Actually, neither Trump nor Brexit were as much of a surprise to me as the Conservatives winning a majority last year.

Morris_Dancer

Mr. Fishing, whoever would've guessed that Miliband would turn out to be crap?

Edited extra bit: that said, Labour would be in a far better state if he'd stayed on.

Just listening to the podcast, about 17-18 minutes in, and must disagree with the chap implying it was ludicrous that Farage 'has changed the destiny of Europe' or words to that effect.

Like him or loathe him, it's because of Farage, in large part, we got a referendum, and are (probably) leaving the EU.

Goupillon

My goodness a large voodoo poll in Sunderland comes up with an incredible turnaround on how they voted on Brexit.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/politics/sunderland-echo-poll-shows-u-turn-on-brexit-1-8282851

Big_G_NorthWales

Leicester 3 up after 20 mins v City - amazing game

frpenkridge

Perhaps the Labour left and Labour right could unite around their mutual contempt for the British working class.

Scott_P

@Andrew_ComRes: ComRes for Indie / S Mirror NET favourability ranking (1/2)

May +9
BoJo -6
Ed Balls -11
Con Party -12
P Hammond -12
Lab Party -17

@Andrew_ComRes: ComRes for Indie / S Mirror NET favourability ranking (2/2)

McDonnell -19
Farage -26
Corbyn -26
P Nuttall -32
G Osborne -39
Trump -52

Tim_B

MsNBC reports that Trump has picked Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson for SOS post. No word yet on Fox or CNN.

PAW

European defence concerns - http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/europe-responds-to-trump-win-with-nuclear-deterrent-debate-a-1125186.html

brokenwheel

Poor Nuttall

Morris_Dancer

Appalling bias on the podcast, mentioned Wales reaching the semi-final but not Rosberg.

Scott_P

brokenwheel said:

Poor Nuttall

@Andrew_ComRes: 84% of UKIP voters favourable towards Nigel Farage, 54% favourable towards UKIP leader Paul Nuttall (ComRes for Independent/S Mirror)

Artist

Hard to see an individual with a -32 favourability rating be the right leader to broaden UKIP's support.

Morris_Dancer

How much of Nuttall's poor rating is simply lack of recognition?

frpenkridge

To be fair to AA Gill, having a life and career centred on eating in expensive restaurants in southern England made him as natural a EUphile as someone named AA Tusk-Juncker.

brokenwheel

frpenkridge said:

To be fair to AA Gill, having a life and career centred on eating in expensive restaurants in southern England made him as natural a EUphile as someone named AA Tusk-Juncker.

And don't forget the English-hating.

Tim_B

Morris_Dancer said:

Appalling bias on the podcast, mentioned Wales reaching the semi-final but not Rosberg.

Didn't realize that Rosberg made the semi-final

Luckyguy1983

I just love being blasted by A A Gill's anti- Brexit views when the man himself is barely cold. Morgue-raiding remoaners it their tasteless best.

Theuniondivvie

Morris_Dancer said:

How much of Nuttall's poor rating is simply lack of recognition?

They only include the + and - ratings from people who recognise the subjects don't they?

Morris_Dancer

Mr. Divvie, not sure. But then another filter would apply: Nuttall hasn't had much time to make his mark or do anything.

Mr. B, you silly man. Go and get me a shrubbery.

FrancisUrquhart

That "Dr" Nuttall, the ex professional footballer, to you ;-)

Pong

Goupillon said:

My goodness a large voodoo poll in Sunderland comes up with an incredible turnaround on how they voted on Brexit.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/politics/sunderland-echo-poll-shows-u-turn-on-brexit-1-8282851

That article is really frustrating.

I can see lots of numbers and analysis and comments but no mention of the actual percentage in their poll.

I want to read the sentence "today, only x% want brexit" but it doesn't seem to have been included in the article.

All we know is that it's under half. Which is only mildly interesting.

JosiasJessop

This seems ripe for comments:

Brussels unveils €321m 'Space Egg' HQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38268659

kle4

SeanT said:

Goupillon said:

My goodness a large voodoo poll in Sunderland comes up with an incredible turnaround on how they voted on Brexit.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/politics/sunderland-echo-poll-shows-u-turn-on-brexit-1-8282851

The most recent (non-voodoo) YouGov poll of the country, two days ago, still shows a narrow majority for LEAVE.

It seems unlikely huge numbers have changed their minds, particularly as any aftershocks have not occurred, nor have we even started the process and done very well/very badly. I would think these sorts of polls would be frustrating for any remainers who are hoping for a reprieve, since it'll sound great, but ain't no party going to advocate acting on mere polls that indicate regret. If 75% of Sleaford had voted for the LD, that might have prompted more to put their heads above the parapet.

another_richard

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

Pong

Pong said:

Goupillon said:

My goodness a large voodoo poll in Sunderland comes up with an incredible turnaround on how they voted on Brexit.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/politics/sunderland-echo-poll-shows-u-turn-on-brexit-1-8282851

That article is really frustrating.

I can see lots of numbers and analysis and comments but no mention of the actual percentage in their poll.

I want to read the sentence "today, only x% want brexit" but it doesn't seem to have been included in the article.

All we know is that it's under half. Which is only mildly interesting.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/politics/poll-how-would-you-vote-if-the-eu-referendum-was-held-today-1-8279953

58% remain

But it's a clickr poll so ignore.

Theuniondivvie

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Divvie, not sure. But then another filter would apply: Nuttall hasn't had much time to make his mark or do anything.

Mr. B, you silly man. Go and get me a shrubbery.

He's been on that great signifier of political impact QT a few times; those appearances certainly helped me to form an opinon on him.

ThreeQuidder

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/807655729129607168

FrancisUrquhart

ThreeQuidder said:

https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/807655729129607168

Less reds under the bed, more like reds driving the bus...

frpenkridge

The picture of the Brussels "Space Egg" reminded me of this, I'm afraid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUrsvegCkEc

Sunil_Prasannan

JosiasJessop said:

This seems ripe for comments:

Brussels unveils €321m 'Space Egg' HQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38268659

The Yolk's on EU fans!

Theuniondivvie

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/807648441262219264

2011: Merry Christmas.
2012: Merry Christmas.
2013: Merry Christmas.
2014: Merry Christmas.
2015: Merry Christmas.
2016: 'We're going to start saying "Merry Christmas" again!'
Oh.
Merry Christmas.

HYUFD

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambler and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

Tim_B

JosiasJessop said:

This seems ripe for comments:

Brussels unveils €321m 'Space Egg' HQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38268659

It'll be full of eggsperts, eggxerting themselves. Eggcellent. Eggs post facto and all that.

Sorry, these are eggxcruciatingly bad puns.

Tykejohnno

Welcome back @isam.

It would be nice to see the return of @nigelforengland.

Stark_Dawning

Theuniondivvie said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Divvie, not sure. But then another filter would apply: Nuttall hasn't had much time to make his mark or do anything.

Mr. B, you silly man. Go and get me a shrubbery.

He's been on that great signifier of political impact QT a few times; those appearances certainly helped me to form an opinon on him.

Nuttall has none of the Farage alchemy. I suspect Nigel knows this too which is why - given also Nigel's contemptuous remarks about the UKIP rank and file, and his gloating predictions of further upheavals in 2017 - it's safe to assume that, with Banks's money, Nigel plans to begin the importation of Trumpism into Britain next year.

Sunil_Prasannan

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambled and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

I've been to Berlin (2002) and Banff, Alberta (2005).

Continuing my exploration of the UK rail network - yesterday, I did the Manchester Airport and East Didsbury lines of the Metrolink tram, just Rochdale line left!

I changed trams at Chorlton, so I've have this ditty in my head all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NUXnl49RI

ThreeQuidder

Tim_B said:

JosiasJessop said:

This seems ripe for comments:

Brussels unveils €321m 'Space Egg' HQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38268659

It'll be full of eggsperts, eggxerting themselves. Eggcellent. Eggs post facto and all that.

Sorry, these are eggxcruciatingly bad puns.

U ok hen?

YBarddCwsc

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

HYUFD

frpenkridge said:

To be fair to AA Gill, having a life and career centred on eating in expensive restaurants in southern England made him as natural a EUphile as someone named AA Tusk-Juncker.

RIP His TV review was always by far the best bit of the ST magazine

HYUFD

JosiasJessop said:

You squeeze the balloon, and it pops up elsewhere.

Islamic State fighters 're-enter ancient Palmyra' in Syria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38275905

Bu**er.

They have entered a warehouse on the outskirts, the army still control the City itself

HYUFD

Sunil_Prasannan said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambled and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

I've been to Berlin (2002) and Banff, Alberta (2005).

Continuing my exploration of the UK rail network - yesterday, I did the Manchester Airport and East Didsbury lines of the Metrolink tram, just Rochdale line left!

I changed trams at Chorlton, so I've have this ditty in my head all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NUXnl49RI

Yes but you are a seasoned traveller Sunil and I notice you went to Berlin rather than provincial Germany

Sunil_Prasannan

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I visited Preston station at the end of September

Sunil_Prasannan

ThreeQuidder said:

Tim_B said:

JosiasJessop said:

This seems ripe for comments:

Brussels unveils €321m 'Space Egg' HQ

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/38268659

It'll be full of eggsperts, eggxerting themselves. Eggcellent. Eggs post facto and all that.

Sorry, these are eggxcruciatingly bad puns.

U ok hen?

Said the Yolker to the thief.

Cookie

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambler and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

Fair enough - I'd expect London to be first on the list for foreigners visiting here - but for foreigners LIVING here - or for Londoners living here - the reluctance to go beyond zone 4 can be quite astonishing. If I lived in Berlin I'm sure I'd go and see Hamburg and Bremen and Thuringia. Britain's nice - the almost wilful ignorance towards it from some Londoners is quite baffling.
See also the common and puzzling Metropolitan belief that London is easy for everyone else in the country to get to, but that the rest of the country is somehow very difficult for Londoners to get to. This isn't quite the same as snobbery - indeed, I've known people from the rest of the country who have moved to England adopt this view - just an intense everyone-should-come-to-us mentality. I don't think there's a word for it, but there should be.

another_richard

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Its a pattern I first noticed with the Blairs - taking a publicity holiday in this country away from their usual Tuscan mansions, they just looked so uncomfortable.

I wonder if there's another country where it can be considered normal, even sophisticated, to literally have no experience of life outside the big city.

To an extent the USA has the split of 'coastal elites' and 'flyover states' but I don't think its as extreme and at least the USA has size as an excuse.

Luckyguy1983

Cookie said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambler and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

Fair enough - I'd expect London to be first on the list for foreigners visiting here - but for foreigners LIVING here - or for Londoners living here - the reluctance to go beyond zone 4 can be quite astonishing. If I lived in Berlin I'm sure I'd go and see Hamburg and Bremen and Thuringia. Britain's nice - the almost wilful ignorance towards it from some Londoners is quite baffling.
See also the common and puzzling Metropolitan belief that London is easy for everyone else in the country to get to, but that the rest of the country is somehow very difficult for Londoners to get to. This isn't quite the same as snobbery - indeed, I've known people from the rest of the country who have moved to England adopt this view - just an intense everyone-should-come-to-us mentality. I don't think there's a word for it, but there should be.

When I lived in Sussex I barely visited London.

Sunil_Prasannan

HYUFD said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambled and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

I've been to Berlin (2002) and Banff, Alberta (2005).

Continuing my exploration of the UK rail network - yesterday, I did the Manchester Airport and East Didsbury lines of the Metrolink tram, just Rochdale line left!

I changed trams at Chorlton, so I've have this ditty in my head all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NUXnl49RI

Yes but you are a seasoned traveller Sunil and I notice you went to Berlin rather than provincial Germany

I've been to Parpan in not so urban eastern Switzerland (for two mini-conferences in 2009 and 2010), got to do the Zurich to Chur train, though needed a bus to get to Parpan,

Cookie

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to both Preston and Hull. And actually pretty much everywhere in the north, and most of the Midlands.
I'd say the largest English city I haven't visited is Norwich. Which is very nice, I'm led to understand, and well worth a visit, but is an awful long way east - you're very seldom just passing through.

HYUFD

Cookie said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in ntly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambler and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeareh fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

Fair enough - I'd expect London to be first on the list for foreigners visiting here - but for foreigners LIVING here - or for Londoners living here - the reluctance to go beyond zone 4 can be quite astonishing. If I lived in Berlin I'm sure I'd go and see Hamburg and Bremen and Thuringia. Britain's nice - the almost wilful ignorance towards it from some Londoners is quite baffling.
See also the common and puzzling Metropolitan belief that London is easy for everyone else in the country to get to, but that the rest of the country is somehow very difficult for Londoners to get to. This isn't quite the same as snobbery - indeed, I've known people from the rest of the country who have moved to England adopt this view - just an intense everyone-should-come-to-us mentality. I don't think there's a word for it, but there should be.

True but for foreigners living in New York and maybe Paris; beyond August, I doubt it is much different

JosiasJessop

HYUFD said:

JosiasJessop said:

You squeeze the balloon, and it pops up elsewhere.

Islamic State fighters 're-enter ancient Palmyra' in Syria

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38275905

Bu**er.

They have entered a warehouse on the outskirts, the army still control the City itself

A few days ago, after a similar headline someone said something like: "Bah, they're not even in the city." Now it's "They're in the outskirts."

The point is that they still have viable units that are able to cause trouble and terrorise innocents. It Is is sadly too early to proclaim the death of IS.

viewcode

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Charles

Scott_P said:

@Andrew_ComRes: ComRes for Indie / S Mirror NET favourability ranking (1/2)

May +9
BoJo -6
Ed Balls -11
Con Party -12
P Hammond -12
Lab Party -17

@Andrew_ComRes: ComRes for Indie / S Mirror NET favourability ranking (2/2)

McDonnell -19
Farage -26
Corbyn -26
P Nuttall -32
G Osborne -39
Trump -52

Conclusive proof that @TheScreamingEagles is right. G Osborne's time has not yet come.

Cookie

Sunil_Prasannan said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambled and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

I've been to Berlin (2002) and Banff, Alberta (2005).

Continuing my exploration of the UK rail network - yesterday, I did the Manchester Airport and East Didsbury lines of the Metrolink tram, just Rochdale line left!

I changed trams at Chorlton, so I've have this ditty in my head all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NUXnl49RI

Very good Sunil - but did you get beyond the stations? You don't have to, of course, but some of these places are worth a look in their own right beyond the station forecourt.
You'll have passed within half a mile of me today - I live close to Sale Water Park tram stop.

Tim_B

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Used to live near Preston - remember the M6 being built - and went to Hull on business several times. As Gertrude Stein wrote of Oakland, with Hull there is no there there.

JosiasJessop

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

Not only have I been to them, I've only ever walked to them (and Hull twice, if you count the northern end of the Humber Bridge as Hull).

We spent an entertaining night in Preston, where we taught some local girls that Australians swear ...

williamglenn

Cookie said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambler and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

Fair enough - I'd expect London to be first on the list for foreigners visiting here - but for foreigners LIVING here - or for Londoners living here - the reluctance to go beyond zone 4 can be quite astonishing. If I lived in Berlin I'm sure I'd go and see Hamburg and Bremen and Thuringia. Britain's nice - the almost wilful ignorance towards it from some Londoners is quite baffling.
See also the common and puzzling Metropolitan belief that London is easy for everyone else in the country to get to, but that the rest of the country is somehow very difficult for Londoners to get to. This isn't quite the same as snobbery - indeed, I've known people from the rest of the country who have moved to England adopt this view - just an intense everyone-should-come-to-us mentality. I don't think there's a word for it, but there should be.

The French have a word for it - nombrilisme.

Charles

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

The whole point of my Winter Exhibition programme* is to make people aware of how fabulous the collections in regional museums are.

* The next one opens at the end of January - Sussex Modernism: Retreat and Rebellion

FF43

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I am a big fan of regional art galleries, partly because you never know what you will find and partly because you feel they need some appreciation. I haven't been to the museums in Preston or Hull however.

JosiasJessop

Tim_B said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Used to live near Preston - remember the M6 being built - and went to Hull on business several times. As Gertrude Stein wrote of Oakland, with Hull there is no there there.

I'm not sure if I should actually admit this in polite company (or even in PB company), but I actually liked the very centre of Hull back in 2002. It seemed surprisingly pleasant.

Although a radio interviewer who I was talking to a couple of days before was rather alarmed at my route into the city: "I wouldn't go that way, it's too dangerous."

Really selling his city...

Dixie

Theuniondivvie said:

https://twitter.com/FoxNews/status/807648441262219264

2011: Merry Christmas.
2012: Merry Christmas.
2013: Merry Christmas.
2014: Merry Christmas.
2015: Merry Christmas.
2016: 'We're going to start saying "Merry Christmas" again!'
Oh.
Merry Christmas.

I'm loving lots of Trump habits. Like his anti "One China" policy and this one. Excellent. Bored with Yanks saying to me: happy holidays!

Cookie

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

On this general subject, the dull bits of England are actually quite fascinating. I used to do a job which involved going to look at potential housing sites, which can pretty much be anywhere where people live - it was fascinating, because ordinarily on your travels your obviously biased towards the interesting bits of the country, and just getting a more representative sample of what real places are like is quite refreshing. Obviously thee job is nicer when it's in places like Ryedale or South Lakeland, but it's possible to see the good in unfashionable places too, and I ended up feeling quite warmly towards outwardly dull places like Walsall and Rossendale.
I wouldn't go as far as to say I'd go to either place on my holidays, but visiting somewhere new is always interesting.

ThreeQuidder

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. I've started taking my wife on trips to places outside of London as she's been here since 2005 and seen little of the country. We did Bournemouth recently, we have Swansea (long story) and Bath lined up for the Christmas/New Year break.

Charles

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Preston has a great museum although I think Blackburn's collection is better. Hartlepool has one of the best collections of publicly owned art outside London.

JosiasJessop

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

another_richard

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

Did you count the caravans ?

Omnium

It's not entirely impossible we may see two new political parties in 2017.

Farage and his (as referred to earlier) Trumpites, and Blair with his somewhat cadaverous New Labour. In both cases they need some credible people to convert, but who knows.

I imagine there are other possibilities too.

Bettingwise I think you have to lay everyone in Labour as next Labour leader, but that's broadly the case anyway.

JosiasJessop

another_richard said:

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

Did you count the caravans ?

Counting caravans is nothing compared to counting beach huts on the Essex coast: afaicr they were three deep up a cliff in one town!

Edit: Frinton.
https://www.natureflip.com/sites/default/files/photo//walton-beach-rows-of-beach-huts-above-the-beach-at-walton-on-the-naze-essex.jpg

Before I went there, all I knew of it was from a Dudley Moore and Peter Cooke sketch
http://www.epicure.demon.co.uk/fatherandson.html

Tim_B

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

I had to go to Norwich on business some years ago - it's miles from anywhere.

I decided to go on an expedition to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles and Southwold. That whole East Anglia place is a different world.

ThreeQuidder

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

But Skegness is so bracing!

Tim_B

SeanT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Been to Preston, but not Hull.

I've seen some of the grimmest areas in the north, not least cause I once did a piece for Maxim magazine on The Roughest Pubs in Britain. My favourite was a pub in inner city Newcastle where we walked in, at 3pm ona Saturday, to see a drunken woman standing on a table trying to hit her husband with a chair (he was staggering past)

Then there was the pub in Chapeltown, Leeds, with fresh blood on the doorstep at 12 noon on a Sunday.

20 years ago I visited several Glaswegian pubs with small windows with bars and barbed wire on them. Didn't stay long. One of them proudly proclaimed to have over 500 brands of whisky on sale.

rkrkrk

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Never been to either. In fact never been to any city in the north of England except Liverpool if that counts. The peak district is nice though.

AnneJGP

SeanT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Been to Preston, but not Hull.

I've seen some of the grimmest areas in the north, not least cause I once did a piece for Maxim magazine on The Roughest Pubs in Britain. My favourite was a pub in inner city Newcastle where we walked in, at 3pm ona Saturday, to see a drunken woman standing on a table trying to hit her husband with a chair (he was staggering past)

Then there was the pub in Chapeltown, Leeds, with fresh blood on the doorstep at 12 noon on a Sunday.

Satanic rites?

Good evening, everybody.

williamglenn

Several explosions reported in the centre of Istanbul...

JosiasJessop

Tim_B said:

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

I had to go to Norwich on business some years ago - it's miles from anywhere.

I decided to go on an expedition to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles and Southwold. That whole East Anglia place is a different world.

Southwold is my idea of heaven. A small town, with a superb beach and an exquisite pier. But most of all: it has its own brewery! On one visit yonks ago, a road was shut after a flood of beer from a leaking tanker ...

Oh, and it used to be served by a narrow-gauge railway.

What more could a red-blooded Englishman ask for?

Cookie

rkrkrk said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Never been to either. In fact never been to any city in the north of England except Liverpool if that counts. The peak district is nice though.

You've never been to Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, York, Newcastle, Hull? And presumably if you're mentioning the Peak District, never been to the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, Northumberland? How? I'm not being rude, but assuming you're British and an adult, what extremes of geography can have led to that beeing the case?

Floater

JosiasJessop said:

Tim_B said:

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

I had to go to Norwich on business some years ago - it's miles from anywhere.

I decided to go on an expedition to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles and Southwold. That whole East Anglia place is a different world.

Southwold is my idea of heaven. A small town, with a superb beach and an exquisite pier. But most of all: it has its own brewery! On one visit yonks ago, a road was shut after a flood of beer from a leaking tanker ...

Oh, and it used to be served by a narrow-gauge railway.

What more could a red-blooded Englishman ask for?

Southwold is indeed a wonderful place.

I also love to walk at Dunwich heath, it's a peaceful place.

Only fly in the ointment is you can see Sizewell powerstation

Toms

JosiasJessop said:

"Southwold is my idea of heaven. A small town, with a superb beach and an exquisite pier. But most of all: it has its own brewery!"

Snap.

On another tack and whistling into the wind I'm thinking that when The Almighty made the universe, One could not experience it. So One broke the mould and made imperfect mankind, and maybe other sentient creatures, to get down and dirty to experience it. Especially tantalizing is the mystery of which parts of pure mathematics bear on reality, and why.

bigjohnowls

JosiasJessop said:

Tim_B said:

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

I had to go to Norwich on business some years ago - it's miles from anywhere.

I decided to go on an expedition to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles and Southwold. That whole East Anglia place is a different world.

Southwold is my idea of heaven. A small town, with a superb beach and an exquisite pier. But most of all: it has its own brewery! On one visit yonks ago, a road was shut after a flood of beer from a leaking tanker ...

Oh, and it used to be served by a narrow-gauge railway.

What more could a red-blooded Englishman ask for?

Crabs!!!

Floater

AnneJGP said:

SeanT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Been to Preston, but not Hull.

I've seen some of the grimmest areas in the north, not least cause I once did a piece for Maxim magazine on The Roughest Pubs in Britain. My favourite was a pub in inner city Newcastle where we walked in, at 3pm ona Saturday, to see a drunken woman standing on a table trying to hit her husband with a chair (he was staggering past)

Then there was the pub in Chapeltown, Leeds, with fresh blood on the doorstep at 12 noon on a Sunday.

Satanic rites?

Good evening, everybody.

Pub in Gillingham, Kent. Mate walks into toilets to find a guy injecting heroin.

On a different day I was on a bus stopped at traffic lights outside same pub. hear a commotion and see 2 people "discussing" why another guy shouldn't have told the police they were dealing. When they saw me looking just shut gate and continued.

Gillingham was a little bit rough and ready :-)

Tim_B

SeanT said:

Tim_B said:

SeanT said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Been to Preston, but not Hull.

I've seen some of the grimmest areas in the north, not least cause I once did a piece for Maxim magazine on The Roughest Pubs in Britain. My favourite was a pub in inner city Newcastle where we walked in, at 3pm ona Saturday, to see a drunken woman standing on a table trying to hit her husband with a chair (he was staggering past)

Then there was the pub in Chapeltown, Leeds, with fresh blood on the doorstep at 12 noon on a Sunday.

20 years ago I visited several Glaswegian pubs with small windows with bars and barbed wire on them. Didn't stay long. One of them proudly proclaimed to have over 500 brands of whisky on sale.

Glasgow is mightily impressive, in ways good and bad. It's got wonderful Victorian architecture: world class. Especially around Merchant City.

But on a dark drizzly winter afternoon, say 3pm on a Wednesday in mid January, with the light already failing, it feels like the capital of Hell.

My wife is from Glasgow, so I got to know it fairly well.

Sunil_Prasannan

Cookie said:

Sunil_Prasannan said:

HYUFD said:

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

'www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Thing is London is by far the biggest tourist drawer in the UK. We do not have the sunshine of Spain, Italy, the south of France or Florida and California to draw many visitors for their summer holidays. Unless you are a keen rambled and want to visit the Lake District or walk the Cornish coastal paths or a history buff who likes visiting castles and cathedrals or a keen Shakespeare fan you are unlikely to visit the UK beyond London. How many Brits have visited Germany or Canada for instance which have similar climates to our own?

I've been to Berlin (2002) and Banff, Alberta (2005).

Continuing my exploration of the UK rail network - yesterday, I did the Manchester Airport and East Didsbury lines of the Metrolink tram, just Rochdale line left!

I changed trams at Chorlton, so I've have this ditty in my head all day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_NUXnl49RI

Very good Sunil - but did you get beyond the stations? You don't have to, of course, but some of these places are worth a look in their own right beyond the station forecourt.
You'll have passed within half a mile of me today - I live close to Sale Water Park tram stop.

I didn't know you were in Sale (I passed through Sale proper on the way to Altrincham two Fridays ago).

Some places I did make an effort. I gave myself enough time to "sea" the waterfront at both West Kirby and New Brighton on Merseyside, for example. Weymouth seafront is easy, as the station is literally 60 seconds walking distance

wasd

JosiasJessop said:

Tim_B said:

JosiasJessop said:

viewcode said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

I've been to Hull. It's better than Grimsby and Cleethorpes on the other side of the Humber. Although to be fair, that's not a high bar.

Both Grimsby and Cleethorpes are better than the interminable walk south to the horrors of ... Skegness.

(Shudders)

I had to go to Norwich on business some years ago - it's miles from anywhere.

I decided to go on an expedition to Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Beccles and Southwold. That whole East Anglia place is a different world.

Southwold is my idea of heaven. A small town, with a superb beach and an exquisite pier. But most of all: it has its own brewery! On one visit yonks ago, a road was shut after a flood of beer from a leaking tanker ...

Oh, and it used to be served by a narrow-gauge railway.

What more could a red-blooded Englishman ask for?

A cooked breakfast?

rkrkrk

Cookie said:

rkrkrk said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Never been to either. In fact never been to any city in the north of England except Liverpool if that counts. The peak district is nice though.

You've never been to Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Sheffield, York, Newcastle, Hull? And presumably if you're mentioning the Peak District, never been to the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors, Northumberland? How? I'm not being rude, but assuming you're British and an adult, what extremes of geography can have led to that beeing the case?

You are correct in all of those. I mean I got off a coach in Newcastle once but otherwise yes.

I would say of my friends from home in the South they would be the same except a few with northern family; and the odd football match (stereotypical southern man utd fans going to old Trafford). Apart from lake district which I'm definitely unusual in not having been to.

It might be a generational thing? In my 20s...

ydoethur

The end of 2016 can't come soon enough for me. Great year professionally (promoted twice) indifferent year politically, bloody awful year personally. There have just been so many deaths. Never known anything like it, and I know it's not just me or all these celebrities.

I'm just hoping 2017 has a lower mortality rate.

williamglenn

Tim_B said:

MsNBC reports that Trump has picked Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson for SOS post. No word yet on Fox or CNN.

Wow! That a very interesting move.

Floater

JosiasJessop said:

Tim_B said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Used to live near Preston - remember the M6 being built - and went to Hull on business several times. As Gertrude Stein wrote of Oakland, with Hull there is no there there.

I'm not sure if I should actually admit this in polite company (or even in PB company), but I actually liked the very centre of Hull back in 2002. It seemed surprisingly pleasant.

Although a radio interviewer who I was talking to a couple of days before was rather alarmed at my route into the city: "I wouldn't go that way, it's too dangerous."

Really selling his city...

I was driving back from Italy and passing through Luxembourg (don't ask.....) and it was late and I was tired. Stopped to ask a woman where I could find a hotel. She saw I had elderly relatives and kids and told me to get out of there pdq. Apparently I was not in a good part of town........ ended up in hotel near airport.

Another time driving to Provence from Holland stopped in a Belgium town / city whose name I can't recall.

Drove in and parked and it turns out I was in a really seedy part of town. Asked policemen for directions to town centre and again got told to get my family out of there.

Sunil_Prasannan

SeanT said:

rkrkrk said:

YBarddCwsc said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

How many pb-ers have actually been to Preston or Hull ?

(I'd be surprised if there are any Caravaggios in either place, but the essential point that the Arts World is absurdly over-concentrated in London is surely true).

Never been to either. In fact never been to any city in the north of England except Liverpool if that counts. The peak district is nice though.

Well then you're missing out.

Newcastle has an extremely handsome town centre and striking riverfront setting. Durham is incredible around the cathedral. York is of course wondrous.

Even Manchester is interesting, with its vital role in the industrial revolution (and Coalbrookdale is like Florence: a place where the world changed - magical and compelling).

Only passed through Newcastle on the way to Scotland (by car and train), most recently in 2012. I do eventually want to do the Metro, as there is a station called Ilford Road

I'm increasingly in awe of Manchester, some seriously good architecture, old and new, loads of trains and trams, canals, and Media City(!). I've been to Manchester around 8 times this year (prior to January, I hadn't even visited the place!).

surbiton

SeanT said:

another_richard said:

On an AA Gill related theme does anyone know who the art critic referred to here is:

' It is the same snobbery that caused an eminent art critic to recently opine on Radio 4 that he hadn’t seen a few Caravaggios being shown off in a London exhibition – because they had been “hidden away in places like Hull and Preston”. They might as well have been on the moon, though he would no doubt have seen them had they been hung in Florence or Paris. '

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/northerners-voting-brexit-north-south

Just as school trips are used to show foreign countries to British kids or in an domestic equivalent to show London to non-London kids or farms to urban kids perhaps its time that some of the 'metropolitan elite' took an opportunity to see Blueland.

I met a fantastically rich eurotrashy couple on safari in Kenya in June this year. He was Italian-Iranian, she was Italian-French (I think). They both lived in London, and had done so for a decade, and loved the city.

I asked them what other parts of the UK they liked and she reluctantly admitted (tho without great embarrassment) that the only part of the UK she had ever been to outside London was Windsor, and then she asked me, "does that count, is that outside London"?

These people travelled the world constantly, Kenya to America, Tuscany to Provence, but they knew and saw nothing - literally NOTHING - of the UK, despite living in the capital of the UK for a decade.

An extreme case, clearly, but very striking.

Do you need to take jabs when you go out of London into the shires ?