Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

For Every Ten Miles From London

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    For Every Ten Miles From London

    OK, so there's this I think reasonably well-known idea that for every ten miles you travel from London, it's like going back in time by one year in terms of, I dunno, let's call it cultural advancement or something.

    What do OTFers reckon? For out-of-towners on a visit to the capital, is London a place of souped-up, thrusting modernity? Or are you sophisticated metropolitan types left reeling with every retrograde step taken whenever you have the misfortune to venture outside the M25?

    Are there areas of cultural life (food, fashion, what have you) where this sort of notion resonates more than others? Or particular parts of the country where it is more true than others?

    #2
    For Every Ten Miles From London

    So this rule of thumb sticks me at - what? Somewhere around the turn of the eighteenth century?

    Let me know how the industrial revolution turns out, I'm dying to know.

    Comment


      #3
      For Every Ten Miles From London

      I'm off to the opening night of something called Hamlet — is it about a baby pig? — by this new Shakespeare bloke. Modern theatre, load of bollocks eh?

      Comment


        #4
        For Every Ten Miles From London

        Great - this puts me back in 1946. Potato and carrot pie with soggy sprouts, anyone?

        Comment


          #5
          For Every Ten Miles From London

          Not sure that analogy is true... I live about 9 years away, and thats probably fine, but say, another 10 miles from here, and it is definitely the Dark Ages.

          Comment


            #6
            For Every Ten Miles From London

            I bring you fire, ugh

            Comment


              #7
              For Every Ten Miles From London

              I live about 8 miles from the West End, and it definitely feels like Christmas 2007 to me.

              Comment


                #8
                For Every Ten Miles From London

                There are plenty enough bits of London where it feels like you're going back 30 years in time.

                There are also urban bits of England where you feel like you're tavelling back a bit in time - but to better times.

                Comment


                  #9
                  For Every Ten Miles From London

                  While I think that the general idea is true - that the 'country' (for want of a better all-encompassing term) is behind the times compared to a large city - I think that a whole lot of caveats apply.

                  For instance, as well as London, it could equally be any large city with a decent arts and entertainments scene - Manchester, Edinburgh, Brighton etc. Also, I think transport links to such places count for a lot - how easy (or not) it is to go for a night out in such places and then get home. That might sound trivial, but it counts for alot, I think.

                  Speaking personally, I live about 40 miles Southwest of London. It's an hour on the trains (and roads, really). I find it okay in terms of cultural awareness here, but I only feel truly relaxed (in cultural and social terms) when I go to London (or Brighton).

                  In the last decade I've come to the conclusion that I could never live more than an hour away from one of these cities with a decent arts/entertainments scene. In fact, just a further 10 miles down the (direct to London) train line there is the 'market town' of Alton. It's getting towards quaint, sure, but it's a cultural wilderness - a real step back to the 1950s in terms of social awareness. Oh and about 15 years ago results of a research project were published, showing that it is the third-most-inbred town in England! (Behind Hayling Island in second and... somewhere else I can't recall.) I could never live in such a place and yet it's right on my doorstep. I actually shudder inwardly whenever I pass through the place. (I never stop, in case they trap me and imprison me in a cellar, so as to use me as a 'fresh genes' sex slave.)

                  I've got a friend who lives in Crewe, which I know some people here regard as the 13th plain of Hell. However, I have to say that on the whole, it's not that bad. It's ordinary - nothing more, nothing less. Probably quite boring to live in, I'd think. But...I definitely did notice a tendency towards casual/ignorant racism, though - something that is the hallmark of such places. For this reason alone, I don't think I could ever live in any place that is more of a 'backwater' than the place I currently live in.

                  Actually, I think the only reason we seem relatively 'enlightened' here is because a large art college brings a constant influx of more 'cosmopolitan' and 'aware' types from across the country. Without the college, I think my home town would soon become a bit of a nightmare, to be honest.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    For Every Ten Miles From London

                    My wife is not a huge fan of going into the country because she gets stared at by slack jawed yokels. We went to Gloucester on Saturday (bastard Debney and useless Malone costing us the match) and I think she was the only non-white person in a crowd of about 12,000, barring the four enormous Fijian guys who sat in front of us and who are members of Glaws' squad.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      For Every Ten Miles From London

                      It sort of depends on how you define what 'backward' means doesn't it? Within a mile of the city of London, for example, are the sort of loaded, on-the-case dudes who until recently thought the current financial system was The Future, living within a hundred yards of people with fairly 'old-fashioned' and hard-line reactionary religious beliefs. Both blinded by faith and unreason.

                      So when Wingco writes:
                      "There are plenty enough bits of London where it feels like you're going back 30 years in time..." he could be writing about both London's most 'cutting-edge' areas and its most 'backward'.

                      I guess I just wish, as someone who in the last few years has lived in both inner and outer London, that the city had done more to justify itself as 'forward-looking'.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        For Every Ten Miles From London

                        Whilst playing pool last week in Tauntons Rileys club I was approached by a pissed up female who had just emptied her bag across a snooker table looking for a lighter.

                        Once I'd told her I didn't smoke, she proceeded to attempt to chat me up using the genius method of berating the pakis that she had to speak to on the phone whilst cancelling her bank card. I wonder if she often finds that racism is a great ice breaker.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          For Every Ten Miles From London

                          Why settle for just 10 years?

                          Prithee, kind sir, why dost thou not fukkest thyself, and the hors on which thou rode inst?

                          Remind me again, it was "Picaninnies" that your newly elected mayor said wasn't it?

                          And you are accusing people from outside London, rather than the people who voted for him for having "backward" values?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            For Every Ten Miles From London

                            I always get the same feeling in Holland when traveling out of Amsterdam.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              For Every Ten Miles From London

                              Isn't London itself always claimed to be 5 years behind New York and Tokyo to begin with?

                              This would make Lancashire circa 1981, which is fine by me. Liverpool can go back to winning European Cups, and Adam and the Ants are about to storm the charts with their double-drum based glam pop infusion.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X