North v South - culture wars

Mooney59: “people dance on tippy toes or watch someone singing (use the term loosely)...”
I don’t care if you are from the North or South, but you should care about showing such ignorance. Ballet dancers and opera singers devote their lives to these professions, working extremely hard to bring some beauty into this world. You speak as a true philistine. Have you heard the expression “Man cannot live by bread alone”? That is why a country like Germany is prepared to invest money in the arts. It’s called being a civilised country. But maybe you are just winding us up? As a Lancastrian, I’m personally delighted that the principal male dancer for the Royal Ballet is from Liverpool.
Interestingly football is as expensive, if not more, as going to the opera or ballet, but people seem ignorant of this fact.
To an earlier poster, Cheshire has never been considered northern by Lancastrians.

I have a friend who has 2 brothers. They were born and brought up in London only a stones throw ( or a bus ride) from theatres, art galleries, museums, opera houses etc. None of them has ever frequented any of these places, preferring instead their local football grounds and pubs. They’re still from the south though!

Sandelf another scouser here but without an accent unless I’ve spent a day in Liverpool then there’s a slight twang. We have some rather posh friends and I was visiting her 96 year old mother who is from Berkshire, when I got up to leave, trying to be kind, I said ‘Don’t get up, I can find my way out’.
Her reply was’You might pick something up on the way out, you are from Liverpool after all’.
I never knew whether she was joking or not but chose to give her the benefit of the doubt. She died at age 100 and I didn’t stop visiting her, a grand old character.

I am northern (even worse Liverpudlian!). Very middle class upbringing and social circle as a child. Speak clear RP. Have much amusement here on the south coast where we now live. When people learn where I'm from, some suddenly look distracted 'mentally counting the silver'. That said most are pretty good considering the awful way the press play up our supposed differences - there are deprived areas in the south too but you'd never think it from the papers.

That certainly would be worth seeing Disco?

I embrace differences and can happily mix with a prince and a pauper, it makes no difference to me whatsoever but it makes me sad to think that many whose artistic desires are such that they feel superior in some way. It shouldn't be this way. Inverted snobbery is all it is----poor things.

My only argument is the evident inequality between North and South which is far worse than any cultural war. This is a governmental situation and not one created by its people, though has helped in a long way to cause a so-called cultural division.

I don’t like any of them. I’d be interested to see footballers running around in tutus and ballet pumps, singing their obscenities at each other though. Could do with a good laugh?

Most of us speak from life's experience and before anyone cry's "I'm offended" it is exactly what I am doing here. Born in the Midland's one experience; moved South and lived there for 48 years.

Now live in the real North East, borders of England and Scotland; and yes, there definitely is cultural differences. I am not sure about ballet and opera neither looms large in my life. Rural life, nature, dogs and horses more in keeping with the life of folks around here.

Art however very much of an industrial granite past and from which the character of the people hone. Angel of the North" a good example. Read "The Northumbrians" Dan Jackson, another version of how they see themselves from the pen of a Northumbrian.

The differences make it all very interesting.

Well interesting that we are pretty much all in agreement

He could have said something like, although we have the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Northern Ballet, Opera North, etc., we also treasure our old historic football clubs, blah blah.

Instead he stupidly went down the cloth clap northern/Glyndebourne southern route. Silly man.

If he were attempting to be amusing then he failed massively - and why a joke like that ? Probably his public school education to blame for everything ( applying lazy stereotypes? Moi?)

I live down South, love theatre, not opera or ballet particularly and used to have a season ticket for the local football team (before I got an allotment), we have Sky sport, we avidly watch all sorts, football/rugby/golf/Grand Prix.
A lot of people in ‘power’ don’t seem to be well rounded, they’d serve their ‘customers’ a damn site better if they were.

This “only joking” thing and the “people are offended too easily” annoys me when the people concerned are professional “politicians “, surely they can learn what not to say?

Oh well if Jeremy Vine says it’s Ok........

Pathetic generalisation.
Has this person never heard of Opera North, the Birmingham Royal Ballet etc.!

jocork

Conservatives have held Rossendale for years

Long before Brexit

I was born and raised in Burnley and had grandparents from Rossendale. I was shocked last year to find that Burnley had fallen to the tories and would have expected Rossendale to be similar - part of the red wall which turned blue. The tories took many constituencies in 2019 mainly because of Boris' promise to 'Get Brexit Done' and I expect many are regretting that now.
Meanwhile I've lived in the South for most of my life having gone to University near London, then Oxford, and now live just outside London again. I have no interest in football though my immediate family support Burnley. I enjoy culture, though I struggle to understand opera, despite my daughter having worked for Scottish opera for a while before returning to her orchertral roots working for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. My ex husband, a Southerner, was a keen football supporter so I'm happy to no-longer be forced to endure the game on TV!
As I'm sure we all know, stereotypes do not represent reality in most cases. As for the government supporting different parts of the economy, everyone wants to see support for the areas of the economy that interest them the most and support their nearest and dearest. I know I am biased towards support for the Arts with a daughter having her career there.
Sadly Jake Berry seems to be just another tory who knows little about the people he claims to represent. Whether his remarks were tongue in cheek or just pure ignorance I'm not qualified to judge.

Yes but we keep our coal in the bath not the barth

LauraNorder

Oh well, at least we in the north don’t eat jellied eels, yuk

Yes but... tripe!

When my Welsh brother in law first visited our large Northern city, he said “I’d no idea you would have so many trees up here. So there you are. Not only should we not have the arts and culture- we shouldn’t have trees either. “Never mind yer ‘Derek Jacobi is at The Crucible in a one man show’ - get back ter tha grindstone and sharpen some scythes, an’ be quick abaht it!”

Here is another rant.I am a proud Northerner, born and bread in my lovely hometown Liverpool.We have a lot of culture in Liverpool, remember it was the European Capital of Culture a few years ago.Our Philharmonic Orchestra is second to none. I dont like football having lived with it all my life, we have so much more to offer, if only people would take the time to discover instead of calling Notherners second class citizens.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

railman

I'm surprised at people in Rossendale electing Jake Berry to represent them - the people of East Lancashire have far more nous than that.

This idea about North v. South is another Tory distraction, so we can blame one another.

Conservatives have held Rossendale for many years

I worked for an international company,and my colleagues from “The South” were shocked to find on a visit to my home that not only did I have inside toilets but a garden.
One who was from Poole didn’t believe me.
I live in a very nice detached house in leafy cheshire and I still had to show him our bathrooms etc he was amazed.
I thought they were just Stupid ???

Ha ....I moved back to the UK late last year having lived in Spain and then France for 21 years.............I come from Suffolk, but decided to move to the North East ...........and I LOVE it ....there were (before lockdown, and hopefully will be after ) fantastic concert halls ...the Sage, at Gateshead...classical concerts by the Northern Sinfonia, and other invited classical musicians world wide ....and other music as well ! concert halls, theatres, cinemas, restaurants, not to mention an international airport (which I used a lot before covid spoilt everything !) a ferry over to the continent, multiple busses, taxis, U3A, clubs and volunteering ...........I DID think of moving back down south near to my roots, but looking into it, there is not a lot to do ...the nearest airports are miles away, and in small villages there are virtually no doctors, shops, transport ......here I am 15 minutes away from a (normally) vibrant city, the wonderful Northumbrian countryside, I am one minute from the beach and sea,,,and 10 minutes from the hospital I did volunteer in (no longer possible until after lockdown)....and of course you get more house for your money than where I come from .............still sometimes go down (again, before lockdown !) to see friends in Essex Suffolk and London ...........its a matter of what you want, and to ignore the comments that I got ha ha ....from friends down South ...'You are going to live WHERE !!!!! ....WHY !!!!!!....[GRIN]