There's as much crap in London as there is anywhere else. All this tripe is written by the prawn sandwich brigade who look down their noses at anything and everyting that isn't chic or vogue.

London is OK for a ten to 15 year hit between the ages of 19 and your mid 30s - then get the hell out......unless you have the misfortune to have been born down there or have family ties that keep you there!

Boxbag, Middleton

Well said!

Inferiority complex about London! I only go down there to watch United, then I'm back up north where I can breathe and think. Most of them are so insular down there,they've got the complex if the world aren't looking at them in a favourable light....always.

I was born and bred in Salford. I moved down to London when I was 25 and lived there for ten happy years. Work and other commitments brought me back here to Salford a little over a year ago, and I have to say; give me London any day.

The weather, the scallies, the misery and general narrow mindedness all add up for a depressing place. Those who get protective and all rose tinted about Salford are always the one's who have lived here "30 years, man and boy", with nothing else to base there opinions on, other than blind ignorance or ill placed loyalty.

Yes, southerners have a stereotypical view of the north; but thats not to say most of it isn't fairly accurate.

The same cannot be said for the stereotypes "us" northerners hold of the south. London is a truly mulit-cultural, multi-everything society; it doesnt have to constantly sing it from the roof tops to convince people of this, it just 'is'. The weather, the real mix of people from all all over the world, the open mindedness, the choice.

Dont knock it until you've tried it. I've tried both, and find London hard to knock. The same cannot be said about Salford.

I would have said. "Thanks for the new complex, If you do not want to use this properly then sod off, we let Sky and Granada have it". No point having another White Elephant going to waste like the Urbis did.

"Those who get protective and all rose tinted about Salford are always the one's who have lived here "30 years, man and boy", with nothing else to base there opinions on, other than blind ignorance or ill placed loyalty"

And 30 years evperience which would be 3 times the amount of experience you have of London.

"Dont knock it until you've tried it. I've tried both, and find London hard to knock. The same cannot be said about Salford"

Were not talking about just Salford when talking about up t'north.

If you have a good wage, London and the leafy home counties are fantastic places to work and live respectively.

And most BBC staff expected to move have good wages.

I'm not surprised many of them don't want to move here.

Your maths is correct, but I think you have missed my point mr/mrs banter. I am suggesting that having an opinion of places you have never been, whilst simultaneously claiming to live in a great place, is rather ignornant and a little bit sad.

But yes, you are correct, 3 x 10 is 30.

Why not remove the billions paid to subsidise transport and housing in London and let employers pay the true cost of having staff live there.
At least then other cities could compete on an even footing

"If you have a good wage, London and the leafy home counties are fantastic places to work and live respectively.

And most BBC staff expected to move have good wages.

I'm not surprised many of them don't want to move here. " Ebble

Half right - You DO need a good salary to thrive in London (something that Peter Salmon certainly does, at £435,000), even though you cannot get chips and gravy down there for love nor money.

However the vast majority of BBC staff are NOT on the best of wages, and that's why something like 48% of the lower ranks are moving with their jobs, which i believe is above par for a project of this scale.

You go down South and you notice something rather odd --- you're in a very different place. Sure, people speak English. They even look like you. But they are more aloof. Strangers don't seem to want to meet your eyes....strangers don't smile at you in shops..on buses, or on trains.. .strangers don't strike up a conversation...strangers sitting in convivial groups in pubs or restaurants seem to look inwards to exclude you from their fun rather than outwards to include you in it... people may gush their delight at seeing you and kiss you four times as though they never want to let you go... but you know they do.
It's a bit like being in that town in The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Something not quite right. Something a bit...cold.
I wonder if the intrepid BBC pioneers who finally pluck up the courage to explore the North West Passage to Salford will notice anything different up here.

"Your maths is correct, but I think you have missed my point mr/mrs banter. I am suggesting that having an opinion of places you have never been, whilst simultaneously claiming to live in a great place, is rather ignornant and a little bit sad.

But yes, you are correct, 3 x 10 is 30"

No assuming people have never been places is sad, assuming people cannot get an idea of a place without going is also sad, pointing this out a said individual may also be sad but you know by your standards you cannot compare London to the north if you have never been to London, so unlesss you have been everywhere in the world how can you compare these two place to everywhere else london may be better than salford and worse than every single other place in the world making them both utterly rubbish, but by your standards you would not know that without visiting those places so until you do don't make an opinion on how good London is.

I was so annoyed at the article in the Daily Mail with a picture of Salford Shopping Centre and Twickenham "Why Mr Salmon does not want to move to Salford", I complained to the Daily Mail editor on the day it was published, that is not Media CIty and the fantastic sourounding area, how biased I live on the Quay and have watched Media City being built, it will have cafe bars restaurants high class supermarket and good accomadation it will be briliant, we already have good theatre with top shows and tram stops to Manchester.
give Salford a go if you don't like it go back to the smoke.

"No assuming people have never been places is sad, assuming people cannot get an idea of a place without going is also sad, pointing this out a said individual may also be sad but you know by your standards you cannot compare London to the north if you have never been to London, so unlesss you have been everywhere in the world how can you compare these two place to everywhere else london may be better than salford and worse than every single other place in the world making them both utterly rubbish, but by your standards you would not know that without visiting those places so until you do don't make an opinion on how good London is."

Sorry, I have read this several times and still dont understand what your point is. You should splash out on a few full stops now and again.

Its grim in London! If he doesn't want to move to the North maybe he can move to INDIA with all the other BBC staff from several finance departments?
Oh wait lets make out that the BBC are cutting costs by moving north, when really they are cutting thousands of jobs and moving them to India, travelling staff over to London to be trained by the people they will be replaced.(thats cost effective)
Nice to see the tax payers money staying on the country.
Wonder why the BBC want to make more of this story than the REAL STORY that takes money and jobs out of the country that pays for it. We have accountants up here to BBC, all the big firms that you could poach.
Yes they are not comparing apples to apples, the nice areas from Hale Barns to Wilmslow are 20 mins from the new BBC while it takes an hour to get anywhere in London.
Anywhere is nice if you have the money, but I dont like London, then again I'm not a big fan of Manchester/Salford city centre as I don't feel safe in the UK.

I'll stay in Manchester and stick to my whippets, pigeons, pints of mild, dripping butties, cloth caps, cloggs and cobbled streets, not to mention my habit of eating off pan lids.

The rumours about the North are all true I tell you.

Oliver Baddlesworth-Smythe,
I lived and worked in london for 35 years and moved here 4 years ago. The last 10 years in london got worse and worse.. Constant rail and tube strikes, transport grinding to a halt every time the wind changed direction. 13 miles of commuting in a car taking up to 3.5 hours on some occasions because of jams.. You mention the scallies up here.. well you must have gone around with your duffle coat on back to front while you were down there, because they have a lot more than here..

People talk to each other here not blank you, try starting a conversation on the underground and and you'll know what I mean.

Even over the short time here, I have noticed things are getting better on the streets.. I have never had a problem anywhere I've travelled in Manchester and have no fear of going into any district or street. You can't do that in the capital and suburbs and that's a fact. I broke down on Wilmslow Rd Rusholme last year and was approached by 3 young lads offering to help!!! I used one of their mobiles to phone a mate to come and collect me. My faith in youth was restored there and then. Would that have happened in Tower Hamlets in London? no chance at all.

Myself and my better half have loved our time here, the people we've come into contact with have shown us friendliness and warmth and always are always prepared to go the extra yard when needed. London you can keep, we are staying here.

So while I'm on here I'd like to thank everyone in and around this vibrant city a big thank you for making us and our fellow london expats (there are quite a few) welcome.

[quote name=Oliver Baddlesworth-Smythe]I was born and bred in Salford. I moved down to London when I was 25 and lived there for ten happy years. Work and other commitments brought me back here to Salford a little over a year ago, and I have to say; give me London any day.

The weather, the scallies, the misery and general narrow mindedness all add up for a depressing place. Those who get protective and all rose tinted about Salford are always the one's who have lived here "30 years, man and boy", with nothing else to base there opinions on, other than blind ignorance or ill placed loyalty.

Yes, southerners have a stereotypical view of the north; but thats not to say most of it isn't fairly accurate.

The same cannot be said for the stereotypes "us" northerners hold of the south. London is a truly mulit-cultural, multi-everything society; it doesnt have to constantly sing it from the roof tops to convince people of this, it just 'is'. The weather, the real mix of people from all all over the world, the open mindedness, the choice.

Dont knock it until you've tried it. I've tried both, and find London hard to knock. The same cannot be said about Salford.[/quote]

----------------------------------------------
I have a similar experience to you but i have to say it depresses me when i have to go back to London now.

I still keep a place in a London neighbourhood similar to Manchester's Northern Quarter and the dirt, grime, rudeness and general aggression is staggering.

And if you've not been hassled by scallies then i'm guessing you spend life in the London burbs (in which case what's the point ?) or spend most of your life confined to SW3. That is not meant to be a disparaging comment, just my observation on my view of London having lived in NW1, NW3 & E1 and having worked in W1, EC1, WC2 and W4.

London is great if it's warm (not hot- the tube's unbearable then), you're rich, don't have a car and are in a position to take advantage of all the amenities on a regular basis. Other than that MCR's got it pretty good as a city to live work and play in or around.

[quote name=Technobabble, Manchester]"If you have a good wage, London and the leafy home counties are fantastic places to work and live respectively.

And most BBC staff expected to move have good wages.

I'm not surprised many of them don't want to move here. " Ebble

Half right - You DO need a good salary to thrive in London (something that Peter Salmon certainly does, at £435,000), even though you cannot get chips and gravy down there for love nor money.

However the vast majority of BBC staff are NOT on the best of wages, and that's why something like 48% of the lower ranks are moving with their jobs, which i believe is above par for a project of this scale.[/quote]

----------------
Actually, there's a chippy on the corner of Tottenham Court Rd and Oxford St that does chips and gravy. It's not the real thing- i mean it's not the Wing Wah in Higher Blackley- but it's good enough when you sick of foie gras ;-)

I've always found the further north you go, the nicer it is, and the people's attitudes are as well. Funny also how it might look like it's always raining up north but when there is a drought on, they are the first to steal our water that has been dropped on us up north. When I think of London, I instinctively think Smog, rats, fire and plague as well as the cholera pandemic and the sewage, The hymn Jerusalem might have the line "Dark Satanic Mills" but London has had far worse.
During the war, apparently only London got bombed in the blitz, the Germans didn't bother with Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester nor other northern cities as we were obviously not important enough. People up north obviously didn't have the blitz spirit either.
Holliwood film writers think that England is the capital of London and that everyone speaks with a cockney accent (Dick Van Dyke, "Cor blimey, if it aint mary poppins") unless your posh in which case, with a plumb in your mouth, ... don't you know!

"Actually, there's a chippy on the corner of Tottenham Court Rd and Oxford St "

I know the one you mean!! It's on the south-east corner diagonally opposite the Dominon Theatre, but the gravy there really is like dishwater; thin and with a distinct lack of mushrooms.

But seriously, the Jan Moir article in the Daily Mail was frankly unbelievable, full of the worst North-South prejudice possible. I was offended on so many levels - as a Liverpudlian; as a current resident of Salford; as someone who had no real choice but to once go and live in London simply to start my career. She makes it sound as if millions leaving the hellhole that is the North, and instead flock to the capital just to revel in the nirvana that is the West End and St Paul's Cathedral (very nice, but Liverpool does has a spare one, don't you know). Oh, she tries to couch it as a joke, but we can all spot that underlying snobbish attitute to the provinces that is driving the words.

This is why the BBC forcing the issue with this Salford move is such a great idea, because the twittering classes down in the big smoke would be more than happy to maintain the staus quo.

I actually lived in Oval and Brixton for ten years. Not quite the suburbs; my car was never broken into, my house neither. I never felt at any time this might happen.

A couple of times the yoots decided to 'disrespect me innit', but they got twice as much back and were quickly sent on there way. On the whole though, 99.99% of the time, I didnt even register on their radar. Thats the yoot of today all over.

There seems to be a diiferent atmosphere in Salford, in general. Scallies dont seem to stop being scallies at 18, a scallie remains so until the day they die, having left a plethora of new scallies for us to manage. They never grow up, they never stop.

And all this happens in the rain! I'm sure this has an impact on the dour mindset of said scallies.

Its easier to go on the tube to a hundred different places, very quickly. Lets not knock the tube; its brilliant for getting to all the great places in and around London. Hot and annoying yes, but simultaneously excellent. How many area's of MCR do people bother to go to, besides there own or to 'town'?? If we're honest, 99% of people just stick to those two.

I would be interested to know which area of London is like the NQuarter, but also rude, aggressive, grimey and dangerous?? It seems you may have picked the wrong place to compare it to, and possibly Cheetham Hill/Levenshume/anywhere else might have been a better choice??

Paul, it's not worth bothering about it and if it's any consolation it's the story everywhere. I'm originally from the second largest city in Greece (up north by the way as well), very much like Manchester, and the story down there is a carbon copy of everything you've described!!

So, really let them bust in their pseudo-superiority, the way life is down there that's the only thing that keeps them going!

[quote name=Technobabble, Manchester]

But seriously, the Jan Moir article in the Daily Mail was frankly unbelievable, full of the worst North-South prejudice possible. I was offended on so many levels - as a Liverpudlian; as a current resident of Salford; as someone who had no real choice but to once go and live in London simply to start my career. She makes it sound as if millions leaving the hellhole that is the North, and instead flock to the capital just to revel in the nirvana that is the West End and St Paul's Cathedral (very nice, but Liverpool does has a spare one, don't you know). Oh, she tries to couch it as a joke, but we can all spot that underlying snobbish attitute to the provinces that is driving the words.
[/quote]

That would be the same Jan Moir who, on the same page, ridicules Adrian Chiles by comparing him to a character from The Night Garden, while herself resembling the uglier sister of the princess out of Shrek. Kettle? Pan?