The BBC are off to Salford

[Norfolk Born]

Errr, I wasn't being entirely serious :) Quite interesting that people actually believed it could be true, though...

....whereas I was, of course, in deadly earnest as regards the baths for the coal and the kennels for the ferrets. Presumably interpreters will be laid on for the 'incomers' for those difficult first few weeks (folk don't talk proper, like, up there, you know!)

[mangerton]

I suspect that the reason London-based BBC staff are reluctant to move furth (Scots expression) of London is that most of them don't believe that anything really exists north of the Watford Gap and they're frightened they'll drop off the edge of the known universe.

The south east bias of the UK's s-e residents and BBC employees both saddens and appals me. "Scotland" is rarely mentioned unless it is preceded by the words "up there in", and for a further example see the recent thread here on attendance at the Proms.

[mangerton]

....whereas I was, of course, in deadly earnest as regards the baths for the coal

[Four Yorkshiremen (and Scotsmen)]baths?......... You were lucky! We 'ad bath in t'puddle once a year.[/Four Yorkshiremen (and Scotsmen)]

[vinteuil]

London-based ... most of them don't believe that anything really exists north of the Watford Gap and they're frightened they'll drop off the edge of the known universe.
.

"Watford Gap"??? - I get alarmed if I venture north of Wigmore Street - up there by the 'Watford Gap' there be northiners and uther furriners - scary!

[Norfolk Born]

Re. #33:
YOU were lucky ...867 of us had to share a small raindrop once every 36 months - AND we had to seed the clouds ourselves - without an aeroplane ...had to make our own wings ...without needle or thread......

[Al R Gando]

....whereas I was, of course, in deadly earnest as regards the baths for the coal and the kennels for the ferrets. Presumably interpreters will be laid on for the 'incomers' for those difficult first few weeks (folk don't talk proper, like, up there, you know!)

[mercia]

according to wiki, Sian Williams's early radio career was all spent "up north"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAtSw3daGoo

[Ariosto]

As a BBC employee about 40 years ago I worked in Birmingham and Glasgow but never learnt to speak the language. As a free lance employee of aunty I also worked in Wales a lot, and London. (Cardiff had a state of the art complex from about 1965 and very nice it was too. They now have moved elswhere I think).

In Birmingham there were lovely seperate radio studios in Carpenter Road. The BBC decided to pull everything together in one place and built Pebble Mill, housing TV and sound all in one huge building. It was state of the art, back in 1973. But a couple of years ago it was deemed useless so they knocked it down and everything in Brum is now spread about again. Makes total sense...

So Salford will be good for a few years after taking two or three to sort the problems out, and then ... it will be rubble and a new state of the art place will emerge. (Mind you, there may be no BBC by then).

[salymap]

Does anyone know where VH [OP] saw or heard this report? I can't find any reference to it so far.

[teamsaint]

Errr, I wasn't being entirely serious :) Quite interesting that people actually believed it could be true, though...

well my response was intended as non serious also !!!!!!!!!!!!
I am sure you can get a cray fish barm cake in salford, and something that resembles Latte...coffee with milk maybe?

[Tony Halstead]

"Salford"...
dear Salford,
ah, my home town where I grew up for 20-odd years, memories, memories...I wouldn't mind living there again.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I suspect that the reason London-based BBC staff are reluctant to move furth (Scots expression) of London is that most of them don't believe that anything really exists north of the Watford Gap and they're frightened they'll drop off the edge of the known universe.

The original jibe about the South-East's attitude to the North was not "north Watford Gap", but "north of Watford". But when the M1 was opened, including the service station at Watford Gap, that tiny village became better known to northerners than the much larger town on the Metropolitan Line. So the jibe became corrupted, losing much of its effect, as it now implies a much greater open-mindedness on the part of the people of London and the South-East.

Barbirolli lived in Salford, but he could have lived in Didsbury, Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Cheadle Hulme, or any of the posher places.

[mangerton]

The original jibe about the South-East's attitude to the North was not "north Watford Gap", but "north of Watford". But when the M1 was opened, including the service station at Watford Gap, that tiny village became better known to northerners than the much larger town on the Metropolitan Line. So the jibe became corrupted, losing much of its effect, as it now implies a much greater open-mindedness on the part of the people of London and the South-East.

Thank you, EA. I shall remember that.

[Serial_Apologist]

A lot of southerners probably think Dundee is a cake

[salymap]

A lot of Northerners think Chelsea is a bun.