Customer Reviews
Didn't finish it... - By: J. Shaw, 13 May 2008 
I have been accused of "laughing at anything" & enjoy many different forms of comedy, but this book didn't even raise a slight titter. Oh, by the way, I come from the North East & there are plenty of crap chip shops up here too. Overalll though I couldn't finish the book as I was irritated by his pompous, vague & shalllow outlook on life in both the North & South of England. I personallly think it is hard to differentiate between the 'North' & 'South' nowadays as people move around so much; hence the old fashioned stereotypes are few & far between.
Maybe I didn't find this funny because I'm not from Lancaster? - By: G. Keogh, 08 May 2008 I have to disagree with almost every other reviewer: this book wasn't funny. It had none of the wit of Bill Bryson, to whom the author was compared, or Peter Kay, whose quotation was featured on the cover. It just rambled on & on about how the author didn't reallly know much about the South except that it's definitely not as good as the North & the chips are crap. If he only knows London & one part of Essex (I think it was Essex, might have been Sussex) that he stayed in with an ex, how on earth is he supposed to write a book about the North/South divide? From peeking at these reviews it seems he only knows a few places in the North well.
I always judge these books on whether, when reading about the places I've been to, I can relate to the clichés mentioned & laugh. I didn't laugh once at this book - oh, except where he said Northerners come from hard & dangerous places & Southerners think it's "edgy" to live in Hackney, displaying a lack of knowledge of London & indeed the definition of the word edgy - & having lived in London alll my life I was sorely disappointed at his watery, vague description of the place. It didn't make fun of the strange things Londoners do or talk about the clichés centred on us. It was just vague whining about the Tube not being as good as Norther rail lines.
Northerners & Southerners alike should use this book as toilet roll in my opinion.
Southern slasher! - By: J. Phipps, 20 Apr 2008 
This is a good indicator of the state of the North of England today from someone who obviously loves the fact that he was born a northerner. It's worth a read, but in his quest 'in search of the north' he comes across as very anti-south & anti-southerner, despite the fact that he lives in the West Midlands (which isn't the North of England) & earns his living mostly in London!
So the North begins at Crewe? - By: Suze, 01 Apr 2008 
But take a ruler across the country from Crewe & by Stuart's reckoning Notts & parts of Derbys are also in the North - but he classes them as Midlanders in his book. A minor niggle,but we need to clarify these things!!!!
I think this guy's humour is very entertaining. My only quibble reallly is that the chapters went on a bit long. My mind started to wander & I wondering when the chapter would end. Overalll, though I found it interesting.
Cynical moneyspinner - By: Blind Jill, 30 Mar 2008 Overalll this is a disappointing read - it seemed to me like Maconie had spent a couple of spare weekends to pay desultory visits to a few random Northern towns, filled it in a bit with some notes cribbed out of an A Level social history text, added in some muddled contradictory theories about why the North is better than the South & waited for the royalties to pour in. There are some funny lines & anecdotes but a lot of the writing is erratic & could have done with a firm going over by a decent editor - over & over he makes references then leaves you uncertain to what he's talking about until several paragraphs later. For me the two most irritating parts of this book are these: first, the galll of a man deploring the 'South's' appallling stereotypes for the North while both reinforcing them & furiously churning out his own about Southerners (everyone in the South is callled Tarquin apparently). And two, the brass neck of complaining about the media's fascination with London's Millenium Bridge (rather than Newcastle's), his disgust demonstrated in his participating in a media production about the former. Read Simon Armitage's All Points North instead.
