The only way is Essex - I am LOVING this already

[Ewe]

Surely I am not the only one watching this?

It's brilliant!!

I just caught the last 15 minutes of the midnight repeat episode.My first glimpse was the two girls on their way to the Sugar Hut in the Merc.My initial reaction was that it was a cartoon...they were made up so heavily and looked like over emphasised caricatures,then I thought it was a drama because they were so obviously acting(very badly).Absolute utter garbage...but I loved it lol.Where can I catch up on the first bit that I missed?

I'm really about what it is actually supposed to be. They are real people - clearly not actors yet they appear to be acting - if that's what you can call it.

It is not fly on the wall exactly, there appears to be some scripting, and 'scenes' and it is edited cut like a soap, but it is at least partly improvised isn't it? Are the characters' relationships real? Are the things happening in the storyline happening in their real lives? Do they really own those cars? Did that wanker really walk into the local jewellers and buy a 7 grand watch like the rest of us buy a new pair of jeans?
Who is the sweet but drippy gay boy?

I'm confused and bewildered.

Walking Caramacs

and there was me saying "Romford Orange" for the past few years

I think it is like The Hills in that the relationships and situations are real but they ramp them up for more drama iyswim? Also slot in a few made up situations for dramatic effect.

I have to say I was hooked from the first couple of minutes.

Well yes, I was hooked too - I'm just not sure it was for any of the right reasons.

Its on again tonight.
I will be watching because bizzarly i actually (wispers) quite fancy mark!

Mark is well fit

I watched it at work at 2am on monday moring and my whole team were sat watching it and every so often one of us would say ' this is SHIT isn't it' but none of us got up and turned it off, we were transfixed!

not just me then

Its the way he talks that does it for me.

He is very good looking - no doubt about it. But a tosser. I don't think I can watch any more TBH. Alouiseg and I have decided that Essex ought to be divided - North and South as separate counties - like Yorkshire. It's a vey big county - it could work. We have totally separate identities and values - and this programme is South Essex all over - and even then it's not really that bad!

It makes me come out in nervous hives to think that I'm loosely related to these people.

My parents live in essex. so totally get that not everyone is like the people on this show.

Well that's an understatement! There are a small handful of notorious towns where people are very rich yet quite common, and showy, but honestly - the rest of the county is as normal and unassuming as everybody else!

We actually have one of the highest percentages of graduates of any county, and our school leavers are amongst the highest achieving in the country, and four of our state schools are consistently in the top ten in the country. So not so thick and common then!

Fellatio - I have an imaginary line across Essex drawn approx a third-halfway up, running east-west and try not to cross it into the southern section.

Ooh I could be much more specific than that -but I won't as I'm bound to offend someone! But yes, you are loosely right.

The thing is, I'm from Kent originally, and the mirror-image section of Kent (along the Thames Estuary) is exactly the same, (but with less money) but they seem to get away without the media brickbats for some reason.

I find Mark quite funny actually. Yes a bit of a tool but when he is talking to his mate "Arg"? if his mate takes the piss out of him he laughs at himself and takes it in good part. A real knobber wouldn't be like that would he? Does seem like he is playing with Laurens feelings a bit though.

Still loving it I have to say.

Just watching this now on the On Demand! I dread to think how much make up those girls have on in real life as the camera usually tones it down a bit!

All the blokes look orange too!

PMSL at those two girls saying that they should pretend to work in parliament. Hmm, yes love, very believable...

Can't bring myself to watch this. There's far too many tw*ts like this where I live and when I shut my door and settle down in front of the telly, I don't want them inside my house too.

They're idiots.

Where do you live doings?

Yes, but the point is that there are plenty of people everywhere in the UK like this now - they tend to cling to suburban areas around rich cities - so that section of Greater London/South Essex has a larger proprtion of them, but you can find them in every county - everywhere!

The link below is very interesting, explains (very accurately) the history that comes with this stereotype, and many of the comments I find are fair and well-balanced.

here

One thing I will say in defence of these kind of Essex people though, is that they are very self-driven, self-sufficient, self-starters - shrewd and generally very bright - not necessarily in an academic way but in the way that matters most - i.e. taking the bull by the horns and getting on in life. They may have slightly dubious tastes and priorities, they may not have read many books, but they don't sit around waiting for life to come to them - they go out and make life happen for themselves. That typifies the average Essex person to me.

It typifies what Thatcher's 'classless society' and social mobility did for people whose working class parents and grandparents moved out of the blitzed East End, and into suburban 'new towns' after the war. They brought a flavour of working class north and Eeast London into semi-rural south Essex, (not so much the mid and north of the county) and with it they brought a typical East End fighting spirit and grit and determination to succeed; a willingness to graft.

Most of the money you see in south Essex (and there is ALOT) is the result of people going from rage to riches in two generations.

Elsewhere in the county there is still plenty of money (in common with all home counties) but it is not so conspicuously 'new'.

I lived in Chelmsford for 18 months and people were just like it.

It was part of the reason I moved back to Oxford

Fellatio essex borders in a commmuter town that feeds the City so it's loaded with those selfs you've just described.

Really? I lived near Chelmsford for 6 years and I didn't see any more people like that that in my previous 30-odd years in Kent - where I saw plenty. But it really depends what part of Kent - just as much as it depends what part of Essex.

I'm sure it's a less common phenomenon in Oxford, but as I said it tends to be a home counties thing or bordering large rich cities - which Oxford doesn't, really.

Well I worked in East London and socialised in Ilford,Romford and had a boyfriend from Brentwood so I guess there was no escaping it.

Oxford is full of students which is baaad in a altogether different way :)

I don't live in Oxford now either

Sorry that should be rags to riches obviously - not rage.