Southern Comfort

The South. Civilised. Sophisticated. Economically self-sufficient… Yet what does it really mean? A wishy-washy definition severs homes in two somewhere in the north midlands. Whilst the insistence of the like of the Kentish that they are Londoners is grating, we are all one family united under the southerner banner.

And yet our pride in such unity is being challenged by a rebel force beyond the wall. The mythical, folkloric north has long hailed its superior tea strengths, abilities of amiability with strangers (yet also intriguingly their physical ability to beat up their new friends) and, of late, the fact that had Yorkshire been a nation, it would have finished 12^th in the 2012 Olympic medals table. (Yes, those games held in London. Won by Londoner Seb Coe. And to a great extent funded by, er, London).

A recent article from our esteemed Tab comrades at Leeds University proclaimed that, essentially, northerners and their territory beyond the midlands barrier were superior in just about every respect to southerners. Such was my ire at this suggestion, and in defence of our university, the southernest uni in the south, that I felt compelled to pop my Tab cherry with the sensitive truth – that actually, maybe, we aren’t all so different after all.

Culturally, the north and south have both contributed to our heritage to a great degree. Tennyson once wrote ‘bright and fierce and fickle is the South/ And dark and true and tender is the North’. But then again, Tulisa tweeted that the North can be ‘grim’, so no conclusive evidence there. Indeed, for every Dom (an Exeter native), there is a northern Dick out there.

In a sporting sense, unity can be found. Northern lass Jess Ennis and London legend Mo Farah clinging on to any cash they can get is perhaps the defining legacy of the Olympics. The harmonious ineptitude of footballers Geordie, Londoner, Scouse and Brummie alike is heart-warming in bridging the gap.

For every TOWIE skank, there is a Geordie bloke making me question my support for Newcastle United. The south might have that elitist, snobby image, but hey, if Jack Wills is so quintessentially British, maybe it’s not just us.

Banter is a beautiful part of being English. But if you hail from up north, with your fast tracking to domestic call centres and membership to Northern Society, think of us without that privilege. So southerners, get your flip flops and gilets out, have a pint of London Pride, and show those northerners what they’re missing out on.