DavidBrown

You're either a "London type" or you're not.

Personally, fighting my way onto a crammed tube, sniffing some guys armpit for 30 minutes, while everyone avoids everyone elses gaze is my idea of commuting hell.

Sure.. you get paid more for the "privilege".. but then house prices are so high, you can only afford a shoe-box with your "compensation"..

That's why Londoners are so obsessed with image/style and having "cool crap" in their appartments.. they can't afford what most of us would consider a decent house.. and they have an awful time commuting, so they have to make up for it by having the latest clothes, SMEG fridge.. or pots and pans.. Whoop-de-doo.

Give me a big house in the country, a peaceful commute, and you can shove your fancy accoutrements.

What amuses me is they way Londoners look down on "out of towners" as if the Londoners have the best jobs, are on the gravy train, and are in "powerful jobs in the City".. completely overlooking the fact that quality of life is more important that status

I'm not quite sure how much you'd have to pay me to work in London, but it'd have plenty of zeros on the end.

[Edited by DavidBrown - 12/18/2003 12:13:00 PM]

V45DSM

There are farmers in Boliva that have more money than Londoners have sense.

ProperCharlie

V45DSM: i find that hard to beleive. London is the economic engine of britain - without it you'd all be fooked. you don't like it, fine - you don't have to live there, but i think it's a bit much to say that londoners have no sense. we just like dirt and traffic, that's all.

angrynorth

I'm sure we would cope

Squizz

<rant>

And aren't we all sick of being reminded about it...

Millenium Dome? New Wembly Stadium? The only thing London is concerned with is keeping the countries wealth tied up in LONDON and pandering to fecking LONDONITES. Scientists are obviously wrong...The world is flat, and the edge runs along the outside of the M25!

</rant>

[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

angrynorth

ProperCharlie

ok you lot, ok:

1)do you hear me saying i am sick of being told what a ****h*le london is by people who don't even live there?

2)the fact is that a much greater amount of revenue is generated in london than is spent on here, including the millenium dome, wembly etc etc.

so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Scooby96

Is lastnights programme repeated?

V45DSM

Latest image from Hubble after retro-fitting a pair of rose tinted, cockney 'oglefakes'.




[Edited by V45DSM - 12/18/2003 2:10:07 PM]

ProperCharlie

that map looks fairly acurate to me, as far as london's location is concerned; although i am a bit confused by the scale - they don't seem to have made london big enough.

Squizz

ProperCharlie:Hmmm... Ya got me. How do I answer that one?

Oh yeah...

"Cockney Barrow Boys and Hoighty Toighty ***** making millions for themselves by speculating on the heard earned graft of service and engineering companies in the rest of the country. Supplemented by a toadying government that hands out cash and tax breaks to the same individuals to ensure they remain in power...in LONDON".

Yeah... That'll do.

Blimey - I surprise myself!

Geddon

LMAO @ V45DSM
Surely London is the whole galaxy? Nothing else matters (or there is no other matter...or something)

angrynorth

@ above post but

Charlie I think you should take off those smog tinted specs and look further afield for where the UK generates its revenue.

ProperCharlie

squizz - please yourself.

i am not knocking other parts of the country. i didn't start saying x is a sh*thole, y is a sh*thole. i am not saying that other parts of the country don't generate wealth as well. But as far as i am aware, it is still a fact that more revenue is generated in london than is spent here. if you know otherwise then fair play to you.

maybe you would like to come down this way and have some of our engineers get that chip of yer shoulder?

fatherpierre

I was the 1st on this threat to say it's a **** hole. I live in London, so am allowed

Some parts are beautiful but to live in the nice parts requires £500000 for a very small house.

I lived in Belgravia for a while, just around the corner from Eaton Sq (£5-£10 million houses) and it was lovely there, if a little boring.

Much of London is overcrowded with people, cars and is filthy. Litter everywhere - a bit like the resy Britain circa 1970-1985 in terms of litter.

Too many people crammed in to too small a space. It is the money place, though.

DavidBrown

OK, so London is the financial heart of the country.. er... and ?

That's supposed to make people who struggle to work every day on tubes and live in shoeboxes feel better about their miserable existence ? Don't think so. If it does, they've got a screw loose.

[Edited by DavidBrown - 12/18/2003 2:40:46 PM]

fatherpierre

Loads to see and do too!

An ok place to live if you've got a bit of money.

5 years and I'm outta this place.

[Edited by fatherpierre - 12/18/2003 2:46:50 PM]

Squizz

ProperCharlie:Neither have I.

I have worked in London for one of the larger financial houses - Gartmore, in Fenchurch Street. So been there, done that. Never again, no thankyou sir!

The rest is a politically based argument. All based upon the fact I believe the rest of this country is sucked dry to supplement the avarice of city/government fat cats.

"Nothing personal, Luv"

Geddon

All places in this sh*thole of a country generate more wealth than is spent on them surely?
How else do we finance wars in Iraq and pay for Europe?

Squizz

Geddon - Apparently that comes out of the money better spent on education and health care...

...n'est ce pas?

Old_Fart

DavidB, the realistic 'new' Londoners recognise that we are prostituting ourselves. We live in ridiculously overpriced homes...granted...it's stupidly crowded, granted...but we get paid far more than our 'skills' would be worth anywhere else in England LOL. Of course the indeginous population have family and history to justify why they are here. I moved 20 miles out 7 years ago and think it's the best compromise...great neighborhood, kids walk to school, house was free and on a motorcycle I am 25 minutes door to door , plus I can eat out in London whenever I want...really miss good food when outside London.
Cman

angrynorth

both good points squizz

Squizz

Really? >blush<

I'm just not relishing the idea of travelling back there to visit the Chelsea Flower show next year.

Orders of 'er indoors.

Did I mention I have a phobia of crowded places too?

King RA

London may be the economic engine of the country but that really does not reinforce your argument for thinking it is a better place.

You only have to go to somewhere like Denmark, a country whose capital probably produces the same amount of money as Bristol or something like that to see how good a 'less well off' country can be.

The whole country is clean, traffic is not a big issue, houses are of a decent size for a decent price ... I could go on but you know where I am going.

Money is not everything, I live in London and as much as I love it, because I was born here, I think the whole place is a **** hole. When was the last time you walked around town and actually heard an English accent (I'm not joking it IS that bad).

To go abroad to other European countries is to see how much of a **** hole this entire country is, not just London. No wonder ,y parents are thinking of retiring to France....and if I have any sense I'll bugger off with them....

fatherpierre

London actually has less spent per person than anywhere in the country despite the average person in London contributing more per person than anywhere else.

Scotland has the most spent per person, I believe. They were moaning about it in the London Evening Standard a couple of months back.

marky1

squizz

gartmore large??? ha

did you give trading a go and not make the grade? hence your jab at the barrow boys and ***** (I take it you mean traders?)




[Edited by marky1 - 12/18/2003 4:32:38 PM]

angrynorth

father pierre is that true? (Genuine Q by the way) The council tax in the area where I live and around it are the highest in the country and it ain't London.

fatherpierre

Yeah apparently so. It was in London's main evening rag. I think it included all taxes paid, not just council tax which is very high in London too.

angrynorth

Well I never
I suppose when you think about it makes sense, with higher wages come higher taxes, and as the wages are more down there and there are more people in the city I suppose that would be true.

PS if at any point I seem irrational during this thread, its because I lived down there for a while and had a bad time. I've built up such a hatred for the place I would never go back. No offence to anyone though