SALT-of-the-earth Northerners hate showing off. Yeah, right. Here are some of the weirder humblebrags about the North they’re inexplicably proud of.
‘Our fish and chips are incredible’
In some cases this is true. Whitby cod drenched in salt and vinegar is delicious, but it assumes the nation’s coastline doesn’t exist south of Yorkshire. Ask Rick Stein, if you can face an interminable conversation about fish. Everyone else in the UK doesn’t just order battered saveloy and chips from inner-city chippies, or they’d have stupid names like The Golden Sausage.
‘We’re only three hours from London’
Yes, one way to really extol the virtues of the North is to constantly bang on about how quickly you can get the hell out of there and go somewhere good. It’s not like you could practically get a job in London – 30 hours a week would be a pretty hefty commute. Other places that are ‘only’ three hours away if you ignore all the extra bits of travel besides your direct journey, are Lisbon, Reykjavik and Crete. And for those you don’t have to change at f**king Doncaster.
‘Our tap water tastes the best’
In the game of Northern one-upmanship, showing off about your tap water is compulsory. Northerners only just stop short of claiming that their ‘council pop’ deserves protected status like f**king champagne or Parmesan or something. The whole boast seems to hinge on all water south of Birmingham being sickly chemical effluent full of dead flies warmed to an unrefreshing temperature, and it’s not. Water companies wouldn’t go to the expense of warming it up for you.
‘A pint only costs £2.50’
This might sound like a genuinely great boast but it isn’t. For two simple reasons. Firstly, it’s incredibly hard to find a pint that cheap even in the North. And secondly, if you do it’s no gastropub situation. You’ll be drinking warm, insipid bollocks called Clagford Bitter in an isolated village pub where the bar staff disappear for 45 minutes and if you order wine you’ll immediately be murdered by locals.
‘It’s so green up here’
The South is a tarmacked wasteland, Mad Max in an endless Asda car park. That includes the Cornish Coast and the Cotswolds. In the North there are endless gorgeous moors with pretty heather where nothing bad could ever happen. But in fairness, the North is very green. Because it pisses down 300 days a year.
‘You must try [insert stupid name of weird local food]’
The North is not a culinary hotbed, more a culinary hotpot, ie. stodge that makes you want to go to sleep for a couple of days. Be suspicious when a Northerner mentions their local delicacy with a wistful look in their eye. They mean something like Henderson’s Relish, aka shite Worcestershire sauce. Carbohydrates feature heavily, hence the ‘Wigan kebab’ (an actual pie in a sandwich) or Hull’s ‘pattie butty and chips’ (battered mashed potato, served in a ‘bread cake’ with fries), a quadruple carb horror a hungry puma would have difficulty finishing.
‘Everyone’s so friendly’
F**k that. This just means you’ve got people prattling at you 24/7. Spontaneously chatting at the bus stop. Saying ‘Good morning’ even though you’ve got your headphones in listening to an important podcast about murder. Engaging you in conversation for your entire bloody train journey. Most people just want to be left the f**k alone, and the sooner the North realises that, the better.
