UK Chewers - where are ya? - Page 3

I think that's the idea behind those type of statements. Although I think that banner also has a lot to do with football banter.

Of course the whole thing is ridiculous, I don't have anything against people from Manchester, unfortunately a lot of people I know do simply because of where they are from and the same can be said about a lot of Mancunians. That sort of thing riles me up.

I don't see a problem in being proud of where you are from and celebrating it and I can see why many scousers think like that. Everywhere I've been in Britain and mentioned where I'm from I get the same predictable jokes from about 80% of people despite them being around since my dad was a kid. I can see why people get pissed off with that and turn inwards. People also want their own identity and I can't really blame them if they don't want to be likened to everyone else in this country. I know I certainly don't, just read the Have Your Say section on the BBC website or the listen to millions of people who read the likes of the Daily Mail or the people who are voting in the BNP. That's the type of thing that stops me being patriotic.

Interesting discussion.

Reminds me of the "Republic of Mancunia" banner at O.T. and shirts sold by the fanzine United We Stand. There's plenty of similar disinterest in the England national team amongst its readers.

I personally think this move towards countyism is because England as a country has been completely eroded as an institution over the past forty years. England are the bad guys, the butt of the joke and we've lost a lot of pleasant defining attributes. As such it's easy to shrink away from the notion of the English as stuck, arrogant, tossers and focus on more insular communities.

Attention all London chewers: MediaOracle and myself will be on your side of the pond for about eight days starting tomorrow. PM me if you're interested in meeting up and hitting a pub or something.

Any of you guys having fun with the snow? Since Christmas Eve the majority of buses and public transport have been down. These past few days I've been the sole person in work for the last few days.

It hit Manchester pretty hard last week and I got a snow day, which I never though I'd get living on one of the busiest roads running to the city centre. Its pretty much melted away now and we had about 6 hours of the dustiest, most pathetic snowfall I've ever witnessed today - none of it settled. I understand its still pretty rough in the North East and down south?

I've had no luck when it comes to snow days since I live across the road from work and unfortunately said road hasn't been buried under 18 inches of snow. But the snow has interfered with fun things like football matches and going to the cinema.

So it's amusing/infuriating to see chav teenage mothers on facebook putting statuses about loving the snow, precisely because they do nothing all day and don't need to get anywhere.

Lincoln lost it's snow on Sunday from the rain and we haven't seen any snow since. I think it's the only place in England without snow!

North East is fine now, I'm in Newcastle and it's all melted.

It was pretty bad last week, the annoyingly efficient Metro system meant I got to work with one other person out of 15. Was very annoyed.

We did go sledging last weekend which was just incredibly fun. I've never really had the chance to do it before, couldnt believe how much speed you can pick up, nearly shit myself!

How have I not posted in this thread before? Weird.

I'm originally from Sussex, spent most of my life in Yorkshire, and now in Newcastle upon Tyne (waaaaaay north). I moved up here to live with Xagarath Ankor, who I was in a pretty serious relationship. That's all fucking over now though, so I've got my own flat and am living a completely crazy lifestyle. I love it up here though, so I'm not bothered I left my hometown for some guy :P

Oh, and the snow is infuriating. May it never come back. Getting into work was no fun, the buses were all over the place.

Thread is dead for months, talk about the weather and BOOM flurry of activity. I love how cultural stereotypes work out.

Anyways glad you all aren't being too inconvenienced by the snow. It's gone from being a 'Yay, it's going to be a White Christmas' level of excitement to a 'FUCK YOU GOD' sort of hindrance.

I hate Christmas, hate snow, and hate being late for work. No attitude shift here :P I wanna go out and party in cute dresses, not leggings and boots!

I moved up to Newcastle from Liverpool just before Christmas for a new job/fresh start, absolutely love it so far! Great town and people, I'm in a nice flat in Jesmond with the girlfriend at the mo but we're looking to buy as soon as possible.

I'll chime- Live and work in West Sussex, work on the coast, so I get the pleasure of seeing a beach that I can't use most days of the year.

Oo, Jesmond, fancy :P I'm in Walker, haha. But the city is amazing, I never wanna leave.

I love Newcastle, have some family in Blythe, it's such an amazingly vibrant city. Makes Bradford and Leeds, my home and surrogate home cities respectively, seem positively quaint. The only bad thing I've noticed is that a lot of smaller bands don't play there. Other than the Arena I don't know of any live venues in Newcastle.

There's the o2 Academy as well. No idea what it's like or what bands they get there, because I'm newish to the area and I'm not very seriously into music, but a few of my friends seem to practically live there.

I'm imagining a Brit-com pitched at the post-Skins crowd. Sure, it's got clubs, cocktails, and kooky neighbours, but it also holds a mirror up to today's young people, their hopes and fears. Fast Times Upon Tyne, if you will.

Urgh, Wales. My heart goes out to you man. Never had any good experiences with Wales as a country or the Welsh as a people.

The lottery that is the university halls of residence system threw me into accommodation in my first year with a Welshman. He was the first person from the country I'd ever met and, like every one I've encountered since, he was polite, affable, and easy-going. I still keep in touch with him.

One of the other guys from said flat is now a dear friend of mine. He hated the Welsh fella when we lived together and he hates him now. Like you read about. Someone else very close to me extends this contempt to everyone from Wales and, indeed, the country as an entity. It's a fascinating, weirdly polarizing issue.

For the record, the accent/language doesn't disagree with me one bit.

Holy Shit...Chortlon and The Wheelies is a blast from the past.

"ello little old lady"...

I think I've been in the US too long. Bout time I went back to the England for a passable Kebab....

Don't you miss cheap and cheerful fish and chips (not the less satisfying, gussied-up restaurant version?)

No Welsh accent-bashing! I won't have anyone disparaging the wrongheaded hotness that is Ruth Jones.

Yikes.

I did say it was wrongheaded! I like my women big and funny.

Holly Willoughby: yay or nay?

I've done way too much googling due to this thread. Yay, I guess.

Although I prefer Fearne Cotton personally.

Good lord I can't stand Fearne Cotton. At all.

Willoughby: Yay.

Allsopp: Yay.

Jones: Yay. With the aforementioned caveat that she's in non-Nessa mode.

Wait, are we talking about having a deep and meaningful conversation or what?

Also this thread really went wrong on this page.

I'm not entirely sure how we got onto yaying or naying female celebrities but I felt compelled to weigh in.

So to get back onto the whole Welsh thing, I had a Welsh flatmate at uni and he was a top bloke.

So we've come to the conclusion that there are TWO decent welsh people. I always kind of hoped that Wales would devolve even further and become a part of the commonwealth just so we weren't associated with them anymore.

Then again I'm a fan of devolution anyways.

Three. My ex-flatmate's girlfriend was lovely, too.* I'm sure Lucie Jones is nice as well.** To take the conversation back onto more meaningful ground (yay to Cotton, by the way) has anyone ever met a Welshman or woman who was for the country going it solo?

* Just kidding, Wales. I really do quite like you. Except for Craig Bellamy.
** Some girls I work with saw her in Belfast recently. Sadly, I was not present.

Tess Daly!

Sorry.

Honestly, never. Granted, I've not met a representative sample of the population, but that mate of mine is as far from anti-English as you can get, so much so that he inspired my "is complete Welsh autonomy even wanted?" remark. That's how much of a non-issue it's always seemed to me, based on him.

That's disgusting treatment your in-laws get, Ken. To our credit - wow, that felt weird to say - at least, nobody I know practices anything other than obviously joking "anti-English" sentiment. Mind you, we usually reserve our xenophobia for the Polish these days. Head-shake.

There's a small band of vocal anti-English Welshies, but they're about as profligate and serious as the Cornish secessionists. Now THOSE guys...they're crazy.

The thing with Welsh anti-English sentiment is that it's so passive aggressive. Go to Scotland and they'll kick your head in for being English, go to Ireland and there's the obvious history there but there's also a co-ordinated anti-English feel amongst the people. But Wales, it's just there.

It's like a 1960s Stand Up comic, he's casually racist but he wouldn't hurt anybody because of it. If there's one thing I can't stand it's armchair zealots. I prefer the brute force of Scotland and coordinated Terror of Ireland to the passive aggression of Wales. Maybe that's me.

Seems as good a place as any to put this. I love the BFI in London and have seen a couple of great films there I otherwise wouldn't have had the chance to see on the big screen, but what is this?!

Who decided that would be a perfect film to put as a Parent & baby screening? I can't wrap my head around it at all.

Isn't the entire point of Parent and Baby screenings that it allows new parents to catch up with films they'd otherwise be missing due to their kid. My local cinema does the same thing and it's always stuff like No Country For Old Men or Zodiac.

Yeah, it's one thing that Odeon's done well on compared to Cineworld. They're a pretty great idea.

Of course I understand the concept behind giving parents a chance to see films they'd otherwise miss, but whenever I've seen a BFI screening listed like that before it's been a kid's film, which makes sense. This is the first time I've seen something that struck me as odd.

But hey if babies are sitting through screenings of NO COUNTRY and ZODIAC who am I to question it?