To be staggered that there are actually people in London who have no clue about 'the north'

[Mingewithafringe]

I'm from a city in the Midlands; a small city but a city nonetheless, with average city-type attractions, and it's a fairly acceptable place to live.

I went to my friend's party in London yesterday and got talking to a friend of my friend (who was born and raised in London).
She was asking me all sorts of relatively normally questions such as "how far do you live from here", "how long did it take you" etc. She was very interested in where I lived.

We started taking about my DS, who was crawling about everywhere and enjoying himself. She then said "that's nice that you know that he's not overwhelmed by large crowds of people, do you have that in (insert city name))?"

I said "do we have situations where there can be large amounts of people?" ( by the way there were only about 30 people in this room)
She replied "yeah, do people have like parties and stuff, or do people not really meet up?"

I looked a bit confused and then mumbled how yes of course he's around lots of people all the time and we go to restaurants/parties etc like Londoners too, and she looked surprise!

It's also happened before with my friend, who before she came to see in my city to stay with me for the first time (we met at uni near London), she asked me so many random and quite frankly stupid questions:

• "Do you have buses?"
• "what is there to do there?"
• "like, where do you go if you want to have fun?"
• "are things open late?"

I'm trying to work out if I have weird friends or whether there are some Londoners who actually think that cities up North are not conventional cities and only have about 100 inhabitants.

If you are from London, did you have ever have (or still have) a misconception about places "outside of London"?

I used to work in a job where it was imperative that we knew what country the customer was calling from.

I don't know how many times I said "London is not a country"

ime this is the whole of the south of England not just Londoners. I think it's because when up north is on tv it always seems a bit strange (I.e. Hollywood, shameless etc).

also I have met northerners with some strange ideas about London so it works both ways.

They have probably never heard of any of these places so have no idea whether they are actually cities or just villages. The uk has a really weird way of classifying cities tbh. I live in a 'city' a few hundred thousand people but there is fuck all to do here. Only one private school, only one private hospital, no art gallery, publisher c transport that stops early. Not really a city at all.

*hollyoaks nor Hollywood

I live in Wales so completely understand where you're coming from.

It is definitely a thing that people forget about middle sized cities - Somerset is all farmers (except Bristol), the fens are all eel catchers (except Peterborough), Yorkshire is all james herriot dales (except York) etc.

Sorry OP but they both sound a bit thick.
From a Londoner.

When I lived outside of London I had a lot of London-based friends who would ask, "Well, can't you get a bus to x, y or z?" No, they don't have a service every 6-8 minutes

But same applied both ways (both in the rural south and NE England where I lived) where people had really mind-boggling assumptions about London

I didn't, but as someone who lived in the SE, then moved to the Midlands, I am frequently gobsmacked by how many people back in leafy Surrey have no idea of anything North of Watford! I get questions such as 'Do you have such-and-such a shop up there?' Uh, yes, I live in a big city.... And don't get me started on them assuming I must be desperate to move back down South as if living elsewhere is just some kind of phase I'm going through to 'try something different'!

Not that long ago someone asked on Mumsnet if it was worth going to Edinburgh in December, or "would everything be closed?". In a city that is not only a capital but a year round international tourist destination.

Thing is, OP, do you know whether Watford is part of London?

YANBU. There is astonishing ignorance in the UK of places really not far away.

Also when we moved from Kent to Edinburgh people kept telling me how cheap the property would be up here. Sold a 3 bed house and bought a 2 bed flat.

London gets a bad name. Folk there are as friendly as they are elsewhere although it is true they can live in their little bubble sometimes.

As a teenager from London I did a course for a few days in a university outside London. I was really surprised that they had their own regional news on TV rather that 'London Tonight' (I think that was the name of the London local news at the time). It wasn't that I thought we were in London still, but I couldn't believe anyone would want to hear about the trivial, dull stuff that happened in the area, rather than what was happening in London.

I don't live in London any more, so I'm obviously used to regional news, but I'm still not sure that there's much point in 30 minutes of regional news outside London as it clearly has to be padded out quite a bit.

YABU to be staggered. There are plenty of ignorant people in this country who are unaware about many things wrt to culture and geography in general.

When I explained to my born and bred Londoner friend, who incidentally is educated to Masters level at Oxbridge, that I was was moving to a city in the North of England, she looked aghast at me and asked what would I do if I wanted to go to the theatre?

When I explained we have theatres and shows and plays and everything, she asked but what about clothes shops? What about if you want Indian or Thai?

Literally couldn't comprehend that these things exists outside of the South.

Ttbb how many private schools and private hospitals does it take to make a real city?

I live in a big Northern city, I but you can literally get from one side of it, to another in about half an hour, I find London arduous to get around but culturally and geographically we have everything (except a beach).

I am married to someone from North East. They have some weird ideas about London - a lot of them have never been. I find it strange that they may have been to Soain or Las Vegas yet have no idea about their capital city.

By they I mean his family.

Sssssshhhh don't tell them it's bloody lovely. Let them think there be dragons after Milton Keynes....

I think it's quite normal. I had a debate with my cousin and her friends not too long ago as one of them had said she could no longer really afford to live in London. When I suggested she move out of the city and shock horror somewhere more northern they all looked like I'd sprouted three heads and was suggesting she live in a shack in the middle of nowhere!!

Why would anyone want to hear the trivial, dull stuff that happens in London? Yet we often have to suffer through it. Not everything that happens in London is either interesting or important.

By the North OP (with a phenomenal screen-name!) you mean of course the historic counties of Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmoreland?

I find that folk from places such as Yorkshire and other parts of the North Midlands are under the illusion that they are Northerners.

I have lived in London since I was 13 but by heart is where my roots are. And recent research has conclusively established that the monkey was a French spy!

Two family stories have to be the cousin who said "she's our queen not your queen" and said cousin's niece who wanted to know "what they wear up there" (as in did she need polar gear). These are both women from the east end visiting south Yorkshire at the time. Smh.