Now the title of this says it all. North versus South. In my opinion it's fucking ridiculous although a bit of source for banter. I love this sort of banter but having lived abroad for a few years of my life and despite being patriotic in my youth...I just don't have it anymore. Anyway, enough of my 'we are all equal and one' chat as I know most don't believe it and need a national identity.
I never understand this...as your identity as a human being is taken away as soon as your birth certificate is signed. Don't believe me? Search for 'your strawman' or even look into the Magna Carta, when the elitest of this country made you slaves. I won't go into that now (believe me I could) but it's all too horrendous and emotive for me so maybe I will dedicate an article to that alone. Actually, I will and it won't be pretty reading and I will provide conclusive evidence to back up what I am saying here. Basically, your birth certificate is signed and you become a member of an organisation, the UNITED KINGDOM PLC (search it on companies house, you should...you belong to it). Ever wondered why your name is spelt on capitals on every legal document. Look into it and find out, I am not going to explain it here but comment and I will point you in the right direction.
I lived in Spain for 5 years, the first few years between the ages of 16-19 I was a patriotic wanker. Used to fight people from other countries for no reason other than they were from other countries and hated us as we were English, conquerors of the universe. What a load of bollocks. No wonder the English are hated abroad with that mentality. A mentality I am ashamed to admit I had but I am glad to tell you I now know how wrong it was, based on some of my actions and meeting people from most countries around the world. It's a mentality that unfortunately still exists in great strength amongst English abroad.
I don't say 'Brits' as I remember being in Tunisia with my ex-partner and them spitting at us when we said English and wanting to rob us. She was from Dundee, Scotland and when we said we were Scottish the abuse stopped and we were welcomed. Funny that eh?
Anyway, the whole point of this is that I went to me local tonight and it was packed after the England vs San Marino game. Afterwards there was news reports of how bad the snow was in the North and severe weather warnings.
Now I have always heard the odd 'Northern Monkeys' banter and will always respond with 'Southern Shandy drinking puffs' To me - it's just banter. What I heard tonight from at least 20 blokes was absolute derision from these guys saying, 'fuck them Northern Monkeys, I hope the snow kills them' and similar comments. Fair enough, I don't have a soft heart but it was when I was at the bar speaking to a sound lad and his mate came over and said 'where are you from?' I replied Newcastle and he said 'oh, I fackin 'ate Norvenors'
Now anyone who know me well enough knows I can't not explore this and just let it slide. Why do you hate them? Any reason other than you're a cock and have no idea what you're talking about? It always ends in bother unless you laugh it off so his mate made light of it, ushered him away, so fortunately we did. Thank fuck to be honest as there was 8 of them against one skinny Geordie by who would have stood till the death!
Yet it got me thinking...what's the fucking problem here? No wonder we are fucked as a country hating each other for no reason at all? We don't even like each other (for no reason) so why would we stand together?
A similar thing happened tonight. I lived in Dundee for 4 years and used to get torrents of abuse from the regular Scotsman. How many knew why? The battle of Bannockburn or Stirling? They knew fuck all about it but watched Mel Gibson and it was drummed into them that the English were cunts. This for me is ridiculous as it was so long ago, we have fought Germans twice since than and get along with them ok? Actually, we've fought pretty much every fucker SIDE BY SIDE so why the animosity?
I pointed out that 90% of us would bury Maggie Thatcher ourselves whilst not telling anyone we did it with a candlestick in the billiard room whilst the main two protaganists to fuck it all up, being Tony Blair and Gordon Brown....are actually fucking Scottish?
Yes people are angry at the way our county is ran, yet it is ran by 0.0001% of our entire population so stop tarring us all with the same brush.
It's incredible when you live up there. Being from Newcastle isn't too bad as they label you as 'Scottish with their heads kicked in' but why oh why...when there are a tiny minority of rich cunts in our world bending us all over and fucking us...do we fight amongst ourselves? Baffles me it really does.
At the end of the day, The Scottish and The English have the same problems. We are run by the same set of out of touch cunts who want to fuck us all to make themselves and their cronies richer. We have fought together for HUNDREDS of years for what we believe in...now you want Independence?
Well we will fight against these cunts. (well, some of us will, unfortunately it seems...not enough of us) The true proper people amongst us...of which there are many.
If you want to be cowards and opt out of the battle after all these years then that's you prerogative but I personally thought you all had more fight than that.
You will have your own demons to fight very soon and the most salient point about this is...you won't do it alone. We will be there for you when you need us as that's how we fuckin roll, always have done, as you always have done too. Cultural or border differences aside.
Always annoys me the Scottish blind hatred of the English, as does the Southern hatred of the Northerners. Maybe we are just happy and that pisses you off. Either way, chill the fuck out we are on the same side.
Too much hate in the world. Clearly not enough love for our fellow man. I don't care where you come from, be sound with me and I will be sound back....and I will always be sound first (depending on how much I have had to drink)
Peace.
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8 comments:
I was contacted this morning as the blog was not allowing a comment. No idea why and sorry if this happened to you. Particularly if you spent time writing something to find this out! The comment is below and is from Troy Stavers:
"Kieran,
Interesting read and viewpoints. Its true what you say and the questions you ask, why we don't all get along with each other. However, that is impossible.
Humans are programmed to fight. You don't need to go as far as Europeans and the English. The scots or English or anyone else for the matter.
Keep breaking it down and as you've said, North v South, but just look at Geordies v Mackems, where there's real hatred. That's English v English, North East v North East, and for the ignorant down sarf, its the same bloody place fighting the same bloody place.
Remarkably last week, I intervened between two groups of Toon fans fighting one another. Apparently North Shields v Wallsend. This was at Wigan away. I ended up in the middle of a good hiding trying to keep hold of someone who assaulted a male. I was wearing a Toon top.
My point is Kieran. You are wasting your time preaching to different factions about getting along. On an individual basis, one on one, you might succeed, but in theory, dislike for others is a natural instinct for humans just as love is. Get them in a group and that hatred can be fuelled by ignorant individuals who strike a match and light the touch paper. Humans love feeling safe in numbers, groups with like minded views. They become raging lunatics over views that, if you got them alone and discussed them, they too would see the madness of the gang mentality.
They're my views anyway.
Have you got the opinsy app? That has subjects on that you can comment on. I'm sure you would find it interesting."
Incredible that it's like that. I can only go on my own experiences which were based in Spain (country vs country) and have noticed it down here near London.
When I was growing up in Tyneside, we had no contact with the unwashed on the other side of the river so although I disliked them as 'it was the done thing' I never saw any real hatred there than at the footy, which was very segregated. Once I heard that our school were going to fight a school in Shields 10 mins up the road but that never happened.
In Dundee where I also lived, their 2 football firms actually stand together too and despite the rivalry, get on ok.
Your own experiences just go to show what idiots we can be for no reason and I do agree with what you are saying, as humans we are like that.
My point is, channel it and focus it at the real enemy rather than at people for absolutely no reason other than territory.
I have included anonymous comments as well s there shouldn't be anymore bother....I can't find the Opinsy app on iphone although have on twitter
Testing
Just out of interest Moreno. You say when you were younger you had little to do with the unwashed from the other side of the river. I often hear people from north of the river say the same thing. You have to remember, Gateshead is the other side of the river and they account for half of Toon fans.
On the subject of channeling your energies into working together instead of fighting one another, I totally agree. Strangely enough, during the two world wars and times of catastrophes, the same people who fight one another, or have prejudices, find themselves bonding and standing shoulder to shoulder.
As I've said before, its a natural instinct to fight just as it is to love. We are tribal and that will never change. The level of tribalism often depends on the financial wealth and comfort the country has at any given time.
Times of hardship always brings out the divides and nationalistic prejudices. Times of wealth brings about apathy and turning a blind eye.
But, to point out, you met a southerner who hated northerners. You could easily have met the next southerner who liked northerners. Vice versa with northerners views on southerners.
I quite like them but I hate Mackems. Everyone is different and I'm not convinced there's a north south divide in terms of dislike. There's definitely a money divide though.
Troy,
Glad to see you mate, thanks for the reply.
Yeah, I never really knew any Sunderland fans (the unwashed) when I lived in North Shields and never had any reason to go through the tunnel unless I was going somewhere nice like Durham or York.
I always think of Gateshead and Newcastle as being 'one' to be honest. I know people from your end may not like that as you will be proud 'Heeds but just the way I have always seen it!
My family live Wallsend so we go up town through Byker and as it's so close to The 'Heed I never really think about the river separating it.
Your post is true, unfortunately change and banding together to solve common issues usually only happens after it's too late. We don't fight to stamp out problems arising we fight to stamp out problems arisen.
You mention 'times of catastrophes' - it is my humble opinion we are in a catastrophe at the moment when you look at the social situation in this country. The recent riots showed us how angry people were. We aren't just talking kids nicking TV's here, we are talking an undercurrent of a very unhappy society in which a large group are willing to say 'enough is enough'
The gap is widening at an incredible scale. The rich are getting terribly richer and they are getting there by making the poor poorer. Things can't continue the way they are. Although they probably will and the people affected will just share something on facebook to vent their anger. Like a picture of a cat calling Cameron a cunt.
Ha! Posting a cat on Facebook calling Cameron a cunt!
That just about sums up society nowadays.
The thing is, the Government have to satisfy the poor by giving them just enough money to keep them happy. The working class would love to see the benefit class get nowt unless they earned it, but if that was brought in, then civil unrest would be inevitable.
They have to give them enough, like 50 inch plasma's, x box's, Sky TV, enough to buy 40 tabs per day and enough left over to buy their opium. That way, they live in squalor with their dirty grubby houses but have every gadget going to keep them happy. Whilst the working class would take everything off them, as we have to scrimp and scrape for such luxuries, but if we did, the majority, the gadget squad, would run riot and rob us anyway.
Me personally, I think we should be ruthless, strip the bastards of everything other than food and prepare to battle!!
It's incredible the amount of technology you can afford on the dole. Cost me almost months wage for my plasma around 4 years ago!
Also, mentioning facebook...how come these are lot are always in fucking Turkey from their 90 quid a week JSA?
Haha, I get where you are coming on that side of it.
Really boils my piss though when I see RBS giving out nearly 100 million in bonuses when we the tax payer own the majority of the bank. Getting a bonus signifies you have done a good job to me.
It's incredible when you look at the actual figures and into the 'austerity' cuts a bit deeper. I highly recommend checking out this blog --> http://scriptonitedaily.wordpress.com/ and read the past 5 posts. Decent sized articles and incredibly interesting. The blog seems to have stats to back up what they are saying too.
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