A Word from the Editor: We'll have the last laugh in north/south divide

The good old North/South divide is alive and well. News that Channel Four had chosen Leeds for its new national HQ was one of those opportunities too good to miss for a bit of geographical satire.

I like to think the social media posts were aiming their fun-guns more at those southern snowflakes than we northern monkeys.

In case you missed them, here’s a sample: “Harvey Nichols opened a store in Leeds several years ago. However, despite it being rammed every day with curious shoppers, no one has yet made a purchase there. It has had to open up a buttie stall on the ground floor to generate any income at all.” Another side-splitter was: “Although pound sterling is accepted in some of the grander shops, the local currency of the muckle (made up of 100 mickles) is preferred. Ask anyone at the railway station and they will gladly take your money off you. If they refuse payment by muckles in any of the pubs, ask them for a fight.”

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My favourite was: “Bring your own aubergines. The first and only aubergine introduced into Leeds was back in 1968.

“It was promptly beaten up on suspicion of being French and tossed on the next coach back to London.”

Sophisticated London-types don’t know how well-educated our palates are, but they regularly come a-cropper with our grub. Remember Labour grandee Peter Mandelson who once mistook mushy peas for guacamole? Or when David Cameron made out he was a pasty-loving man of the people. He told journalists the last time he had eaten a pasty was at Leeds train station – alas for him, the pasty shop he referred to had closed three years earlier.

We’ll have the last laugh though. They think the M25 is a nightmare, wait till they try the M62, the M621, the A64, the M1, the A1...