Why do Londoners think they are separate from the rest of England?

Biohazard said:
Miles better my ****.

Edinburgh has 5.

I've seen cocktails about a ton, vino near a grand and whisky £15-15k a bottle. Only got some of the wine mind you, that was at the Witchery. There was more expensive on the menu but hey beggars can't be choosers. Was lovely.
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Glasgow is miles better than Edinburgh... Anyway, all the stars in are in Leith :p.

I've seen expensive cocktails, I believe that a bar in Glasgow won the award for the most expensive in Britain or something like that. However, the best cocktail I've had in Glasgow is around £8. Expensive does not make good.
That being said, Edinburgh is undoubtably more of the 'foody' city. A shame, because the rest of it is pants :p.
 
What a strange subject to seriously converse about o_o; Anyhow, all I can say is that the culture and atmosphere in London is unlike anywhere else in the UK I've been.
 
Ahleckz said:
Glasgow is miles better than Edinburgh... Anyway, all the stars in are in Leith :p.

I've seen expensive cocktails, I believe that a bar in Glasgow won the award for the most expensive in Britain or something like that. However, the best cocktail I've had in Glasgow is around £8. Expensive does not make good.
That being said, Edinburgh is undoubtably more of the 'foody' city. A shame, because the rest of it is pants :p.
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My arse, you've got nae stars cheap drink and haggy women. EAST COAST MOTHER******! :D

Leith was consumed by Edinburgh a very long time ago in case you hadn't notice! ;) A few of them are, but the Balmoral and the plum aren't. Plus it's good for me because I'm just along the shore. 'Expense' - Ah right, sorry I took this as a potential top trumps game. I would agree with you on expensive does not make it good, but all the really expensive stuff I've had around the world has always been great tbh. Depends what you define as expensive.

Edinburgh is fantastic for food though, far better asthetically too. You can't beat the Old Town, Glasgow has nothing like it. Instead Glasgow has glass tower blocks and empty factories! :p

(Ps we better not invade their London thread too much)
 
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Biohazard said:
My arse, you've got nae stars cheap drink and haggy women. EAST COAST MOTHER******! :D

Leith was consumed by Edinburgh a very long time ago in case you hadn't notice! ;) A few of them are, but the Balmoral and the plum aren't. Plus it's good for me because I'm just along the shore. 'Expense' - Ah right, sorry I took this as a potential top trumps game. I would agree with you on expensive does not make it good, but all the really expensive stuff I've had around the world has always been great tbh. Depends what you define as expensive.

Edinburgh is fantastic for food though, far better asthetically too. You can't beat the Old Town, Glasgow has nothing like it. Instead Glasgow has glass tower blocks and empty factories! :p

(Ps we better not invade their London thread too much)
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We do have some cracking restaurants though! And, I suspect One Devonshire Gardens will get a star next year. Fancy a wager?

I'm actually planning to go to The Kitchin for my birthday in November. I really like the look of what Tom does with his ingredients. Though where would you recommend? It's a slap up Michelin restaurant followed by a Travel-lodge sort of affair :D. Much prefer decent grub to a decent hotel!

I sent you a message through Trust about the Glasgae meet btw.
 
Biohazard said:
Leith was consumed by Edinburgh a very long time ago in case you hadn't notice! ;)
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Edinburgh doesn't really want the Leithers and they don't want us, we only took them on as an act of charity. ;)

There's a number of reasons why London could think it separate from the rest of England and indeed separate from the wider UK but perhaps the most obvious is that it's far and away the biggest concentration of people in a single place in the British Isles - when you've got so many people living in one place it tends to become somewhat focused on itself. I'm quite frequently surprised by the number of Londoners that I speak to who've never visited any of the other countries in the British Isles though, in fact a number of them probably wouldn't even have visited England if they didn't happen to be living in it - they'll go elsewhere on holiday but because nothing else in the UK is viewed as being as big or impressive as London they don't want to visit it.
 
semi-pro waster said:
Edinburgh doesn't really want the Leithers and they don't want us, we only took them on as an act of charity. ;)
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I'd kill to live in the Port of Leith though. I have a friend who lives on the Shore next to Malmaison and Cruz, it's such a cool wee bit. :) :cool:

I often try to imagine it as it's own town, maybe some woodland between it and the old city gates... but I'm strange that way. ;)
 
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I wasn't born or brought up in London, moved here just over 5 years ago for work and it certainly has got its own rough areas but on a whole its not really comparable to other UK cities. It is an international city comparable to NYC, Tokyo etc... it *is* different to the rest of the UK and other UK cities.

It has its own regional assembly with devolved powers just as Wales and NI do. Salaries are higher, prices are higher etc...

London compared to the rest of the UK (especially anywhere not in the south east) is like comparing somewhere in the rest of the UK to a place in Eastern Europe.
 
PMKeates said:
There are <£300k pile of crap houses in the worth-living-in areas of London.
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There are plenty of worth-living-in areas of London; Belsize Park, Islington, Camden, Highgate, Hampstead Gardens, Docklands, Shoreditch.


Maybe I do have high expectations, does that make my opinion any less valid? You started not by telling me you disagree, but by telling me that I was wrong.
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In fairness, I think you were wrong when you said you can only have a good time living in London with a six figure salary. I mean, have you ever actually earned that amount of money or put it to the test?
 
Ahleckz said:
We do have some cracking restaurants though! And, I suspect One Devonshire Gardens will get a star next year. Fancy a wager?

I'm actually planning to go to The Kitchin for my birthday in November. I really like the look of what Tom does with his ingredients. Though where would you recommend? It's a slap up Michelin restaurant followed by a Travel-lodge sort of affair :D. Much prefer decent grub to a decent hotel!

I sent you a message through Trust about the Glasgae meet btw.
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Witchery. It's no star, but I love it. Followed by Malmaison. It's been a while since I've been to the latter though. I like atmosphere with my meals, and both the Old Town and Port of Leith have it. Go go go!

The Northbridge Brasserie, which is in the old Scotsman newspaper buildings on North Bridge over Waverly, is pretty good too.

I'll get your message when I've finished munching my tea! :)
 
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Frenzy said:
Ok if im saying something really stupid here feel free to bash me but:

Doesn't London have its own police force and internal economy?
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Most areas of the UK have their own police force.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'internal economy'?

The actual City of London (very small area containing 1 of London's 3 financial districts) has its own separate police force. Its also (AFAIK) one of the only places in the UK where companies are able to vote in Local elections (they each have a number of votes allocated to them based on the number of people they employ).
 
PapaLazaru said:
When I went to Uni, a guy there, who was from Streatham, had never even seen the sea. No lie. We showed him. He was amazed.
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Similar thing with a friend of mine - we brought his London Flatmate (who'd basically been brought up in London and had never been to anywhere outside of the M25) up to the Midlands.

It was very amusing, we were over-doing it a bit and being quite sarcastic to the Londoner while on my friend's farm - 'Look Ashvin, this is a cow...' etc...


Went out in Birmingham and he was supposed to meet up with some of us later in the evening in another area in the city - he wanted to know which train he'd need to catch to come and meet us... we had to point out that despite being the UK's 2nd city Birmingham is still pretty small compared to London and he could quite easily walk anywhere within the city centre.

On the converse some friends who've come down to London have previously asked whether XYZ area is the main 'Highstreet' or 'City Centre' etc...
 
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sldsmkd said:
Blackheath seemed affordable to me, also pretty and good transit into London. Friend of mine had a 2 bed there for £900 a month, which you can easily cover on an average professional salary of £40k.

People with midrange property in centralish London are living in cloud cuckoo land, a house in semi desirable area just cannot cost 7-8 times a well-heeled professionals salary when the banks won't lend that. There aren't enough Russian billionaires willing to slum it.
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40k isn't really much in central London so your *average* professionals are forced to buy outside the centre. Plenty of 21 year olds starting front office jobs in banks or working at top law firms will take home over 40k in their first year.

There are still plenty of people who can afford to drop 500k on a 2 bed flat or a million or two on a townhouse etc..

The Russians/Chinese/Arabs are looking at more like the 8 figure mark for their properties.

The average male salary in Canary wharf was over 100k per year back in 2005...

Over 3000 people in the city earn over a million pounds per year.

There are a lot of people on various 6 figure sums in between.

I don't think there is going to be a shortage of people who can afford the mid range properties. London is cramped, property in a desirable area in the centre will fetch a premium.
 
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