Why do English people do that?

Ah, an Ausie playing a jock in a film mostly filmed in Ireland

Gretna ??

Gretna gateway outlet village to be precise.

twoniner – Member

Ah, an Ausie playing a jock in a film mostly filmed in Ireland

Yes, it’s the “playing a jock” bit that’s relevant.

The rest is about funding and tax breaks

And arses.

CountZero – Member

When it’s at least a hundred miles north, it’s the north, innit. Same as everything at least a hundred miles to the east is the east. And places that are at least a hundred miles to the south and south-west, well, you get the gist.
Really!

Funnilly enough, it’s still the north when they’re in it. And 100 miles to the south? That’s the north too. And the east? That’s also the north. And the north? Well, that’s the north too.

Ugh, just read this and it’s driven me to drink. I guess I’ve become a borderline alcoholic.

It could have been more factually correct by stating that it’s in the north west of Britain.

Is that small-country-syndrome-agnostic enough for you?

What annoys and amuses me about the london-centric media is the descriptions of people who call into the radio or email a website:

Ed from Sheffield
Daisy from Bristol
Rob from Brixton
Dave from North-east Hammersmith
Brian from Scotland
Julie from Wales

Why not Ed, Dave etc from England and Brian from Pitlochry?

It’s a bit like talking to americans: where are you from? Scotland? Oh, I love Europe! Are you near Paris?

What UK magazine was this in anyway?
Perhaps it’s an English mag available in Scotland? Dunno.

Ed from Sheffield
Daisy from Bristol
Rob from Brixton
Dave from North-east Hammersmith
Brian from Scotland
Julie from Wales

Why not Ed, Dave etc from England and Brian from Pitlochry?

I’ve never even heard of Pitlochry, but I have heard of Sheffield, Bristol, Brixton, Hammersmith, and Scotland, and have a rough idea where they are. I suspect that applies to most people in the UK.

EDIT : To be fair I’m not entirely sure where Sheffield is, it’s a bit north for me, but I definitely have a rough idea where Scotland is.

zokes – Member

It could have been more factually correct by stating that it’s in the north west of Britain.

No, that’d be the opposite of factually correct- Ae’s pretty close to the middle of Britain.

I wish my life was so free of any genuine concerns that I could find the energy to get worked up about stuff like this.

why do Scottish people feel the need to assume all English people are the same

Oh teh ironing 😆

I know getting the creases right is hard when throwing sweeping generalisations out into the world

grum – Member

I wish my life was so free of any genuine concerns that I could find the energy to get worked up about stuff like this.

Trying to decide between Mooch, Coffee Cali and Copa House really takes it out of you doesn’t it? 🙂

Was just over the border in Hebden yesterday, getting a haircut at John’s and having a mooch around – nice to see nearly everyone back to normal after the flooding.

why do Scottish people feel the need to assume all English people are the same

I like what you did there 😉

I haven’t read the context of the article – if it’s about one person’s trip, then perfectly acceptable to talk about it being just over the Scottish border. But if it was a more general article, then it is a bit lazy to assume all your readers are English.

Not, by far, the laziest journalism though, the one that really bugs me is the way nobody – not even BBC Scotland who are meant to cover stuff from a Scottish perspective – bothers mentioning when news stories affect England only. We’re supposed to care deeply about what Gove says about education or what latest wheeze is being used to sneakily privatise the NHS, but it’s never mentioned that these things don’t affect us.

it’s never mentioned that these things don’t affect us.

What a selfish attitude 😐

I feel the same about the American non-news we’re constantly bombarded with.

And the BBC weather map projection that gives undue prominence to the south.

Never mind, eh? 😀

What a selfish attitude

Okay, would you like to hear, in great detail in every newspaper and on every news broadcast, about the education system in France? Would you find it slightly annoying if the BBC reported story after story after story about the health system, without once mentioning that the health system they were talking about was the German health system?

It’s not selfish, I care a lot about what the Tories are doing to screw up things in England, but I’d also like the media to remember that not all of us are in England. Or even London.

Yeah but it’s the British Broadcasting Corporation, not the French or German Broadcasting Corporation. We expect British news, Scotland is part of Great Britain and is likely to remain so for a long time.

No, that’d be the opposite of factually correct- Ae’s pretty close to the middle of Britain.

Nope, that would be this place, which is quite far away from Ae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunsop_Bridge

The chip prevalent amongst many nationalists is coming out. Again I recently said that they get worked up over things like the Premership and the UK weather map, and am being proved correct. Seem to have a wish to live inside a tartan shortbread tin. The bad world South of Carlisle and Berwick can be kept out. If something comes on the news about England, just put your fingers in your ear and blast out Scotland the Brave.

Ben, you would care about the NHS in England and Wales if you ever required A&E treatment after a biking accident during a trip ‘just over the border.

Lighten up – they’re Mabie confused where they meant.
As a Borderer with Scottish maternal family and English father, I consider myself both, though not a bit Welsh, and have little connection to London.
Time for a frontier Republic…….

Not read the whole thread but what I have seen suggests that the English folk on here are as small minded as the writer in the OP – and stupid enough not to even understand.

Dumfries and Galloway? that’s somewhere down south isn’t it, just before the border?

cynic-al – Member

Not read the whole thread

The chip prevalent amongst many nationalists is coming out.

Funny thing is, living in the North of England I see/hear plenty of people complaining about the “national” news being overly London-centric, but I guess it is easier for you to make sweeping stereotypes when it involves national borders.

(e.g. when the news was constantly wibbling on about “the 5cm snowpocalypse in London while we had half a metre outside)

Was just over the border in Hebden yesterday,

Now you see that’s different. Even God decided Yorkshire needed a proper border, which is why he invented the Pennines.

My quote there GrahamS is anything but a sweeping stereotype. If it was I would have used ‘all’ rather than ‘many’.

As someone that would like to see tourists come to my area I would be more concerned with the content of a review of Ae than being pedantic about the description of it’s location.

If you are unhappy about reporting in the North of England then you could have an independance referendum.

I’ve read the thread and can confirm that the ironing is piled high 🙂

I doubt there was an iota of malice in that journo’s mind when he wrote the sentence the OP is talking about, the only thing he is guilty of is slightly substandard journalism. Hardly worth starting a war over.

As northwind suggested though, it’s often the straw that breaks the camel’s back with media coverage of Scotland. Each minor thing just reinforces some people’s views that all the UK media is concerned with is the south east.

This isn’t unique to Scotland. I spent most of my adult life in the north of england, but working some of the week in london and the london centric reporting is even more apparent. At least scotland gets called “scotland”, anything that happens in England outside of London occurs in “the north” (or Brighton) 🙂

I’m not sure why people get so upset about it though. It’s just the words of a reporter/journalist. I’ve yet to meet one who is in the running for the Nobel peace prize. They’ve probably got bigger concerns re content other than tiptoeing around the little known sensitivities of some folks in the provinces 😉 It’s not great journalism, but it’s not the voice of the UK either.

Fears have been growing that some stronger than expected price rises this year could be leading to a bubble south of the Border, with borrowers over-stretching themselves.

Again, he invoked the miasmic swamps “south of the border” for comparison, that hellscape of “less police stations, less police officers”.

Just two of several articles from today’s Herald including reference to “the border.” So perhaps the answer to the OP is that, like some Scots, some English use the term to denote locations or activites that take place, “just over the border.” Makes a lot of sense to me so the OP will have to excuse me for not being offended by The Herald.

THM, the Herald is a scottish publication. I think the gripe was about publications which are supposed to be UK wide reporting primarily from an English perspective.

If the journalist is English, and self-identifies as such, and writing in the first person why must he project himself as something else? It isnt a news report.

Peterfile, pls tell me that you are not suggesting that either the Herald or The Scotsman refrain from UK wide reporting?

I agree, as I said, it represents the views of the journalist rather than the UK/England. I don’t have a problem with it.

BUT, many will read the article as being the views of the publication rather than the individual’s, hence why some people perhaps get a bit frustrated when their favourite UK publication appears to view them as “another bit of the UK”.

Like I said though, I really can’t see what the fuss is about.

And the BBC weather map projection that gives undue prominence to the south.

I’ve often thought that the map of the uk they show on the weather should be based on population density rather than geography.

It would allow a great granularity of prediction for, say, the South East of England whilst allowing a dismissive wave of the hand at the barren unpopulated hinterlands of Northern Scotland and mid-Wales.

What’s the point of giving a detailed forecast for an area the size of half of Wales that a couple of thousand people live whilst condemning 7 million people in the South of England to leaving home without a brolly because there wasn’t enough explanation of where the showers were going to be that day?

[Please Note: the above is written tongue in cheek. I do think that a lot of ‘prejudice’ in the media and other places is a sub-conscious understanding of the relative size of the audience for what is being said, though]

[edit] here you go;

I really can’t see what the fuss is about.

+1

I’m border this