AIBU in finding comments such as "soft shandy drinking southern bastard"

[lolaisafuckertoo]

from my husbands Northern family, beyond insulting. Card from FIL with usual sentiment on it for DH for birthday. Similar comments from the fleet of twats during Xmas day Skype (we are abroad for the moment). given that the grand daughter is southern i.e. born here. I am also born in the south east. I want to tell them all to just fuck off northern fucking monkeys.
I don't think it is funny. DH doesn't seem to think so....but then his dad is always less funny than he really is..

[Bowlersarm]

YABU

My first serious boyfriend was from Chester. Oh, I loved his family dearly and his friends. They were always saying things like that (although not the bastard bit). I just took the joking as affection. We lived together for 6 years, and after our split I still kept in contact with them. It was all quite sad.

Then I married a softy southerner like myself. Very boring, much preferred having a contrast of backgrounds (although DH is the one for me, just wish he had grown up in a different area with a different accent )

[minouminou]

It is blindingly tiresome.

It's possible they can't think if anything else to say, though. Are you a bit stand-offish with them? When they start with the boring stuff, just change the subject.
Have a mental list of subjects ready to pick from and just steer the convo away.

I've been living in the south for 15 years now, and it's sooooo dull to listen to these tired old statements. Politics aside, it's a tiny island, we're all of us (well, most) getting shafted one way or the other.

A relative of mine moved here a couple of years ago, and was going through the usual "Eyup, ah'm 'ere for't' show thee how to drink beer" Bittersweet Symphony monkey-walk nonsense.

One of my responses was that she might end up meeting a friend of ours who survived the Rwandan genocide. Did she think he'd give a shite? No, and pretty much everyone else isn't too far behind.

[minouminou]

Oh, and inverted snobbery is a bastard.
There is nothing you can do or say to tackle it.
Not sure if this is what's going on with the OP...doesn't seem like it, but it can get genuinely un

[minouminou]

Oops!
...genuinely un

[minouminou]

I'll try again
Genuinely unpleasant, and your hands are tied.

[Custardo]

not sure how it is inverted snobbery

I thought it was a bit of fun, I think some people take things too seriously

[minouminou]

Read my comment:

"Not sure if this is what's going on with the OP...doesn't seem like it, but it can get genuinely unpleasant."

I was just chiming in with some previous posters who were talking about inverted snobbery.

Mentioning it once or twice...yeah, nice ice-breaker etc etc...but years of it? Wears very thin indeed.

[GlitzAndGiggles]

Eeee this threads full of bloody doyles!

As a southerner my northern monkey side of the family would be proud of me for that :)

[minouminou]

It's like the OP's in-laws don't see her.
I'm not sure how many years she's been with her DH, but it should have worn off a bit by now. This is what made me ask if it might be the case that they're a bit stuck for something else to say to her.

[lolaisafuckertoo]

In truth, they are not people blessed with sparkling wit. I am in fact born in London, of Irish parents, lived in Ireland from aged 6 to 19 where we were English, returned to London where I was called Paddy regularly, lived in Spain where no one was the slightest bit interested in where I was from, my eldest daughters father is Spanish and I now live in America with my Northern DH and our DD2, who has auburn red hair which of course his lot said was the streak of Paddy. Actually, his aunt had the same hair....a streak of Viking. His father once asked if she was the milkmans....ha ha ha

I do not feel comfortable enough with is lot to find this old line churned out year after year to be amusing. Neither do I feel close enough to chuck it back. By all means go on about it when we see you, don't send a birthday card with it on....please come up with something a bit more original.

His father has said in the past, at various get togethers;
The Irish have brought their trouble on themselves
THe Catholics chuck incense around and believe in magic
The blood Irish and the famine, not the first won't be the last.
Oliver Cromwell was given bad PR over his Irish campaigns.
I could go on.
All said without a hint of banter or gentle joshing

so that perhaps explains my raw spot about it all.

[lolaisafuckertoo]

Oh and he has a little hitler moustache too. that he dyes. brown

[minouminou]

Briefly, as I'm off on the school run.
In 1997 The Verve (from Wigan, iirc) released Bittersweet Symphony. The vid featured lead manRichard Ashcroft walking through the crowds on a London (I think) street and bumping into everyone. He used a distinctive sort of walk that got picked up on by regular joes as well as a few comedians, and the joke was that as soon as a northerner gets off the train, s/he adopts this walk.

The thing is, very few people would say "northern monkey" for real, but it seems ok to call someone a bastard/poof/Tory/ etc etc.

As soon as you say anything back, from your position of unimaginable privilege, you're doomed.

[Latara]

Down here in Dorset there are lots of 'incomers' who have moved here from London area and the North... I used to get teased for my (slight) Dorset accent by some London lads and got called the Caramel Bunny!!

[Latara]

In fact.... down here in Dorset you're a Northerner if you only come from London.

[aquashiv]

I used to live with a bunch of northerners (from somewhere dark outside Watford). I could drink all of them under the table and they wore coats when I didn't have to. So I would say its all lies and rise above it.
However in my case I am rather partial to a glass of shandy now. Send him a picture of Albert Tatlog or whatever old git is on Corrie these days, saying saw this and thought of you..
Its just banter. Its the folks from the West you have to watch.

[melika]

My FIL is always having a go at my background, but although grating and has bothered me over the years, I'm sure he is delighted when I do take offence. So I don't anymore. He is a prat.

JUST IGNORE and think of some choice ones to fire back at them. You can end it with 'but I'm only joking'!

[lolaisafuckertoo]

volestair isn't it though?!

[DipMeInChocolate]

As a southerner, well midlander living in the NW it doesn't bother me at all as I agree with it. My northern cousin has lived in London too long and on a recent visit home upon not being able to use a card in the pub stated "oh, I forget things work differntly outside of London".

[Mim78]

Am taking from this the idea that it is not so much the words they a're saying that are offending you but the constantly being got at by family. If so yanbu as would be tiring.

[lolaisafuckertoo]

mim78 I think that is it really. The southern thing is simply the tip of a slippy pile of shit they feel compelled to throw. I never rise to it, ever, even in moments when they are outrageous. but this is just really boring now.

[usuallyright]

as a northerner darn sarf, I can accurately report that the stereotypes are in fact true and not just stereotypes!