Sinister: Maybe it's because I'm not a Londoner

[Robert McTaggart]

Wahey!  A fight...

Mark wrote:

>I'm also wondering if all you listees have a somewhat pro-Scotland/anti-London
>stance. Would it be the same if B&S came from Finchley?

Of course not.  They would be totally different if they came from
Finchley.  A lot of great groups come from London, the Kinks are
probably my favourite English pop group of all time, the Clash were
great on their day, and nowadays we've got Saint Etienne and
Stereolab...but just as the Kinks could have come from nowhere other
than London, the Smiths wouldn't have been the Smiths if they weren't
from Manchester, B&S are a product of their environment.

>I for one think London
>is fucking wicked in almost every respect, I've lived here all my life (brief
>sojourn in Bologna excepted), and fully intend to stay here for ever and ever.
>I think it's beautiful, haunting, sexy, dark, vivacious, pretentious, cuddly
>and grotesque, and I love it. It does kind of annoy me reading all this "oh well
>of course I live in London but my life's changed ever since I went to Glasgow,
>what a wonderful place, so much more full of life and intimacy than big, anonymous,
>grimy ol' London Town" - 

Lets have a moment's silence for poor little London, alone and unloved
all the way down there, isolated from an uncaring world.  With
respect, Mark, you're talking bollocks.  I hadn't noticed a lack of
London letters, far from it.

Like most non-Londoners I'm sick to the back teeth of the London bias
in the media, the way bands from "the provinces" are even now treated
as a novelty.  Look at how Manchester bands have their quotes reported
phonetically ("fookin' 'ell") as if any variation on Estuary English
is some sort of bumpkin dialect.  London has had the limelight for as
long as I can remember, and you can hardly blame the rest of us for
saying "it's our turn now".

>if you don't like this place you haven't got to know it nearly well enough.

Maybe if you don't like London, you just don't like crowded tubes full
of bad tempered passengers, bad air, fashion victims who don't dance,
racists in the East End, stroppy taxi drivers and the overwhelming
capital-centricity of far too many of its population.  Myself, I like
London for the most part.  I like being able to find the records I
want, see films, to see bands playing.  I like Covent Garden and Soho,
Thameside pubs, and Highgate Cemetry.  And I'll probably end up moving
there.  But don't get all uppity if they happen to prefer somehere
else.

Rant over,

Love Tag
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
.     This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list.
.        To send to the list please mail "sinister at majordomo.net".
.  For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see
.             http://www.majordomo.net/sinister
. For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister at majordomo.net
.            Somos todos conejitos felices que tararean
.           consonancias felices del conejito - no somos?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------