Britainology 25: The North feat. Rob Smith and Kaye Wiggins
This week, Nate and Milo discuss the North-South divide of England with help from two friends of the show--and FT reporters--Rob Smith (@bondhack) and Kaye Wiggins (@kayewiggins). Rob is from Derby (technically not in the North, but presumed to be) and Kaye is from Southport (definitely in the North). We discuss their experiences in the South, the fact that Liverpool and Essex have so much in common, and a guide for international students in the UK that offers a doctrinal definition of Northern Monkeys vs Southern Fairies. Hope you enjoy!
Rob and Kaye worked on a piece about financial misadventures in the North that you should check out: https://t.co/YaFREWTHbg?amp=1
Comments (28)
Are you guys describing poutine as "chips gravy and cheese".
Yeah northern poshos go to MGS or Durham School and make sure they never interact with people outside their class. Alexander Armstrong and Dominic Cummings are the quintessential northern poshos. Being the son of a farmer and having shares in the worst nightclub in Europe (that's exclusively patroned by posho students from the south) is the peak northern posho experience
Great episode but left intrigued, as someone who's made Bristol their home, by Nates comment about Bristol being its own universe. Are we that weird?
To be fair, having lived in Bristol a number of years, it does feel like a bit of an anomaly compared to the rest of the area. I lived for 2 years in Weston Super Mare before living in Bristol and even by that small distance, they feel like two different vibes.
As someone from Northumberland you do get the occasional posho, it’s where their country houses are but they send their kids to private school in the south so they never sound northern and have minimal interactions with normal people there. When I was in sixth form I worked in Waitrose in the one decent-sized town in Northumberland which is where I’ve seen them in real life.
As someone who grew up in Peterborough I can confirm it is Mordor. Voted worst place to live in the UK 3x years in a row on ilivehere.co.uk lol
I'm American but my mom is a Geordie. She left Newcastle when she was young, so she just has a generic English accent you would expect for a woman who has lived in the US for 30 years. But the rest of the family has strong accents so I remeber my gran had called us one day and my mom asked of I wanted to talk and I said "no, I can't understand gran when she speaks."
Whenever I hear MGS I immediately think of Metal Gear Solid, so I had a whole rainbow of mental images there. God, imagine posho Solid Snake.
"Oh, I'm sorry, did I keep you chaps waiting?"
Wouldn't Northface just be using coal dust instead of boot polish?
Fully agree with Kaye about the divide being London & South East Vs the rest of England. I'm glad Nate is getting some education on these matters, particularly regarding how coke is a massive thing in London & SE, but most places I've been around the rest of the South are much more pill/Mandy/speed focused.
Kaye mentioning that someone she knows thought northerners were friendlier has reminded me that in the one linguistics module I did in my BA we looked at how people rated accents for different traits. "Regional" accents (Northern, Welsh, Scottish etc) tended to rate high on friendliness but low on trustworthiness, while Southern accents were the opposite. We also looked at what accents people wanted to hear in different contexts and again, "regional" for friendly things, Southern/RP for "professional" things. Spare a thought for the Brummies though, for whom every group questioned said they would prefer to hear silence than a Brummie accent in every context 😔
Fully agree with the accent malleability tho, living in the Netherlands meant I've had to tone down the Welshness a lot, both accent and slang
Big up woking
It's interesting that the cultural divides in England still run broadly along the lines of the early medieval kingdoms. The North is Northumbria, Midlands is Mercia, West Country is Wessex, East Anglia is... East Anglia and the rest of the South east is the Kingdoms of Kent/Essex/Sussex
This is a great observation I wish we'd be smart enough to consider on the show!
When I was visiting London with my family, my grandmother couldn’t understand even the voice on the tube. I could see her watching Downton Abbey with subtitles.
“My old landlord who I’m friends with” cringe
I mean he let me put my extremely ill and homeless brother up in one of his properties when exactly zero above-board NYC landlords would. he’s still a piece of shit and he knows it, but there’s an extent to which I feel obligated to maintain that relationship because he did me a solid in a very bad situation
i think it would be interesting to have a britainology on british/australian cultural relations (as an aussie who was born in the east end i of course have no vested interest in this)
having as many boonta hosts as possible would be great
Do all British TF guests have to be Oxbridge? ;)
No but it helps!
Brilliant episode, loved it. Do one about Scotland as well.
Scum is an ideal Britainology subject, along with director Alan Clarke's similarly themed The Firm. Both incisive and powerful films about different forms of violence that attracted big groups of fans who latched on to the 'ard man brutality but totally missed the social criticism.
feel like I've been owed this episode since Nate lowkey ruined my life as a Wiganer by by retweeting the smack barm pey wet video lmao
I've wanted an episode on the north for ages. Hell yeah, strap me the fuck in!
It’s T’NORTH ONE.