Imagine the situation if you will. You are about to embark on a long journey abroad, possibly on a boat or a plane. You are happy and content because at that very moment you are the only British person in the environment. Lovely! Picture then, that feeling of utter horror, depression and crushing inevitability that something dreadful is about to happen as another British person joins you. And they are from up North. And by up north I mean either Yorkshire or Lancashire. First they will be friendly and chatty as you are a fellow Brit, but as their attention span (not the longest in the history of humanity at the best of times) begins to wander they will suddenly remind you why it was such a good idea by the Romans to build a bloody great big wall to keep the "northern hoardes" out.
Your biggest crime in their eyes is that you are from "the south". To them this will give them carte blanche to comment on:
Your sexuality. As you are from "down south" then you are very obviously a poof. This is northern logic in action. You will see a lot more of it in the next few moments.
Southern beer. All southern beer to anyone born north of Watford is inevitably dubbed "weak as piss shandy drinkers dish water!" And this from an area of Britain that gave us John Smith's Smooth Flow - the brewing equivalent of draining the contents of the bottom of a dish washer. When I do go up north I have often been astounded by the amount of pubs that serve real ale through a sparkler. A sparkler is an attachment on the pump that puts more air in the beer, froths it up and masks its flavour if it is weak or gone off. At the pubs I used to work in down south we only ever put sparklers on the pumps when the beer was on the turn, but apparently it is demanded to be on every single pump "oop north".
Southern women. Northern fuckwit men like to tell everyone that all southern women are ugly dogs and right old slappers. Apparently all northern women are stunning Helen of Troy look-a-likes and are as classy as a night out in Blackpool. Just like all those real lookers on Coronation Street you mean? More pigs and hounds in that street than on your average farm.
How wonderful Lancashire/Yorkshire is and how awful wherever you live is. There was a documentary on some years ago following a group of tourists at a Greek Island resort. There was a complete mixture of people from all walks of life - and a group of four friends from Lancashire. They all wore t-shirts that mentioned somewhere on them that they were from Lancashire. One of the guys spent the whole holiday wandering around the resort in a vest with the words "I'm From Lancashire, Lancashire is Great, You can all FUCK OFF" written on it. How witty. Oscar Wilde at his finest. To cap it all off this idiot suffered a deep vein thrombosis in his leg on arrival, but decided to go and get pissed for three days first before consulting a doctor. After being hauled off to a Greek hospital he checked himself out immediately, rented a moped and spent another two days drinking and riding his way round the countryside with a leg that was rapidly turning a violent shade of purple. He finished the holiday by turning up for the flight back to Lancasheeeer pissed and abusive at the airport. Oh for a suicide bomber on that flight.
Now I realise that there is a competitive element wherever people live. I was always amazed by how much animosity there was between north and south London when I lived in the capital. But northerners don't just have chips on both shoulders, they have fucking great bags of King Edward Potatoes. And as for the Welsh.... Nah, better not go there.
After watching England's pathetic over-paid and over-hyped bunch of total tossers abjectly surrender to Croatia this evening, I felt a need for a Spleen.