Sunday 12 July 2009

Cool Idea, Harriet!

But we are going to need a test for Northern-ness in order to make it work:
The Mail on Sunday has learned that she wants to introduce rules to halt discrimination against people from ‘up North’ and other regions, and has instructed her Equalities Office to look at ‘diversity proposals’ to stop Londoners and other Southerners lording it over the rest of the country.
I propose we offer a plate of Southern fish (cod) & chips, cooked in vegetable oil, and a plate of Northern fish (haddock) and chips, cooked in beef dripping. Make them choose. The true Northerner will surely spit out the Southern effort!

Any other suggestions?

18 comments:

Von Spreuth said...

Any one can eat a double portion of battered sausage and deep fried mushrooms, and an extra large portion of mushy peas, followed by a battered Mars bar with chips, all washed down with Irn Bru or Tizer, OR that strange stuff that purports to be "apple juice", or "pear juice", manufactured by some company no one has EVER heard of, from a greasy bottle that has stood on the back shelf of the chippy for twenty years before you buy it, wears a flat hat, breeds racing pidgeons and ferrets, Actualy EATS the jarred pickled eggs in the pub, thinks Monty Pythons "The Yorkshgire men" is "social commen doccumentary", passes the test.

Von Brandenburg-Preußen.

the man who fell back to bed said...

ask them if they want a brew.

the northerner will say 'ta very much', the soft southern shandy drinker will merely look blankly at them.

I mean ffs...

the man who fell back to bed said...

mind you, it's true about the fish and chips.

ever since I moved to London it's bloody impossible to find a nice chippy that serves steak puddings and gravy.

and whats a saveloy?

Von Spreuth. said...

the man who fell back to bed said...

and whats a saveloy?


It's a monkey suit from some posh dive in London like.

"A Savaloy suit" or sometthin' they call it.

Von Brandenburg-Preußen.

Gibby Haynes said...

That's odd. I'm a Yorkie, and I always have cod when I go to the chippy.

James Higham said...

What a joke. We will always be discriminated against by southerners.

staybryte said...

"No gravy at the chippy
And what's a saveloy?
Every pub were full of foreigners and bottom boys.."

As the Macc Lads once sang of their trip to London's Glory...

tory boys never grow up said...

Just demonstrates your ignorance I'm afraid - Lancastrian fish and chips are usually cooked in vegetable oil while the preference in Yorkshire is for beef dripping. All better than the southern efforts however!

Edwin Greenwood said...

'Addock? 'Addock? Nay, lass! Tha might be offered 'ake in Lancashire if 't cod's a bit on 't pricey side or 't booger's bloody well gone extinct since 't last catch or sommat, but bloody 'addock?

Mind you, as a Northern ex-pat in London of some 35 years' standing (and occasional sitting down), I will say that it is virtually impossible to get reliable fish and chips down here.

Oop North, you could go into to more or less any chippy and be guaranteed a decent meal. (Otherwise, 't proprietor 'd be in for a bloody good lampin'.) In London, chippies are run either by Turks, who seem to make their fish fillets out of bleached lamb or goat shavings from the kebab spit, or Chinese, who seem to be totally unable to grasp the concept that the process of filleting involves removing the bones. The only reliable chippies - from the fish point of view - that I've encountered in London have been a long closed establishment on Hampstead High Street and the Fryer's Delight on Theobald's Road, and even that's not what it was since the original Italian owners retired.

The absolute worst fish and chips I have ever experienced in London was at a mock gor blimey caff opposite the Tower of London. The battered fish fillet had clearly been fried off site and was then reheated in the microwave immediately before sale. Disgusting is not the word. Forcing a beard-and-sandals gravity-dispense fundamentalist CAMRA or SPBW member to drink Foster's might be comparable. Fortunately this establishment, which must have done wonders for the UK repeat-visit tourist trade, seems to have disappeared in the last round of rebuilding.

Ee bah gum, booger me, bloody Nora, ecky thump, 'ell as like, tha knows. Moan, moan, whinge, whinge!

Anonymous said...

There's a simpler method.

Don't look for the chip on the plate, look for it on the shoulder.

Anonymous said...

There's a simpler method.

Don't look for the chip on the plate, look for it on the shoulder.

North Northwester said...

Labour can bloody well leave the northerners alone and keep their silly hands off us. It's bad enough having so many off the scallies sitting in northern seats without forcing us onto accountability boards or wherever.

DJ said...

I'll settle for them stopping sending 21 year old Oxbridge grads up here with jobs in Enterprise Zone Regeneration IT Urban Renewal Business Agency boondongles.

blueknight said...

I used to work at 'Garrisonville' but in 1980 I transferred to to 'Seatown'. I was there for 20 years, but then fate sent me back again.
I was patrolling with a colleague when I remarked, 'There used to be this awful chippie. it was so bad no one ever went there sober. The chips tasted like they were cooked in diesel and they used to sell these big red 'jumbo dick' saveloy sausages.
'Still there' said my colleague. And it was. And so were the saveloy sausages which were probably the same ones I had seen on display all those years ago.
So, a challenge to any Northerner, Saveloy and chips sone cold sober, - if you think you are hard enough.

JuliaM said...

"That's odd. I'm a Yorkie, and I always have cod when I go to the chippy."

Oh, they do serve cod, but in my experience, when I've been up there, haddock far, far outstrips it in popularity.

"Lancastrian fish and chips are usually cooked in vegetable oil.."

They always were odd....

"The absolute worst fish and chips I have ever experienced in London was at a mock gor blimey caff opposite the Tower of London."

Oh, tourist trap food is the worst!

"So, a challenge to any Northerner, Saveloy and chips sone cold sober, - if you think you are hard enough."

I hear you can get them in batter now! *shudder*

David Gillies said...

Surely the solution to discrimination is for them to stop being so ghastly and Northern, with their flat vowels and caps, and saying "eee luv" and "'appen as maybe and like as not thee's reet, by 'ecky" all the time and eating mushy peas with everything, and not being able to tell a Pouilly-Fuissé from Vimto, and having coal dust under their fingernails. Mind you, where I'm from we think people from Portsmouth are Northerners.

Actually you can get good fish and chips everywhere, and you can get bloody awful fish and chips everywhere. One of the best places ever was in Tankerville Road off Greyhound Lane in Streatham. It was run by a Vietnamese immigrant and it was brilliant. The place was as immaculate as an operating theatre and the cod fillets were the size of a skateboard. On the other hand, finding a decent chippy in the Leeds-Bradford area was really hard (although I did like the halibut at Harry Ramsden's).

delcatto said...

I'm in a quandry.
I'm a Londoner who moved to Grimsby twelve years ago. My preference has always been for haddock, chips and mushy peas. You can't beat the fish up here. The beers better as well with a proper head on it (not that lager shite) and the women are better. So you can keep Harriet in London thank you.

JuliaM said...

"...although I did like the halibut at Harry Ramsden's.."

Halibut? Now there's something you don't see in your average chippy...

"So you can keep Harriet in London thank you."

Yeah, I don't think there'd be a rush to take here anywhere...