The South - where does it start?

[zico]

On a similar theme, where do self-identifying Northerners think the South begins?

[sg31]

Watford Gap Services was a favourite location for the border when I lived in Sheffield.Another popular one was a line between Bristol and Ipswich.

[bungeejumper]

Just south of Chartres. That's where the fields of sunflowers begin and the warm Atlantic air currents start to kick in, and the roads get long and lazy. Maybe you didn't mean that, though?

BJ

[kiloran]

Sheffield

--kiloran

[terminal7]

Who cares?

I live in London.

T7

[richlist]

Watford Gap Services.......I thought everyone knew that.

[PinkDalek]

Sheffield

North or South of Sheffield?

[scotia]

At the Lammermuir Hills

[stevensfo]

About Liverpool latitude. I never feel I'm 'up north' till well past there. The police there are West Midlands, so maybe a bit further up.

Steve

[gryffron]

IME, most Northerners think "the South" starts at the southern edge of their hometown. Or possibly the southern end of their street.

Not that southerners are much different. I once got accused of being a "northerner" by someone from Southampton!

Though I too would go for Watford Gap as the most practical answer.

Gryff

[jfgw]

I thought it was Watford Gap if you divide the land into two. This, however, only applies if you assume that "The North" and "The South" are both mutually exclusive and exhaustive.


Julian F. G. W.

[jfgw]

The North: Where beer is cheaper per pint but you get two-thirds of a pint of flat, lifeless beer and a third of a pint of foam.

The South: Where beer is dearer but you get a full pint and the carbon dioxide is still in the beer where it belongs, not floating in a pile of bubbles on the top.


Julian F. G. W.

[stevensfo]

The North: Where beer is cheaper per pint but you get two-thirds of a pint of flat, lifeless beer and a third of a pint of foam.

The South: Where beer is dearer but you get a full pint and the carbon dioxide is still in the beer where it belongs, not floating in a pile of bubbles on the top.

Julian F. G. W.

Really?

I'm a Southerner, but for me your definitions are without doubt, the wrong way round.

For beer and pub lunches, give me the North every time!

Steve

[neversay]

Well I'm from the Midlands originally and always treated as a Southerner by Northerners, and Northerner by Southerners. So on that evidence The South starts below the Midlands and The North starts above it.

[swill453]

Well I'm from the Midlands originally and always treated as a Southerner by Northerners, and Northerner by Southerners. So on that evidence The South starts below the Midlands and The North starts above it.

Well on the same evidence you could say that the South starts above the Midlands and the North starts below it...

Scott.

[scottnsilky]

The North: Where beer is cheaper per pint but you get two-thirds of a pint of flat, lifeless beer and a third of a pint of foam.

The South: Where beer is dearer but you get a full pint and the carbon dioxide is still in the beer where it belongs, not floating in a pile of bubbles on the top.


Julian F. G. W.

Spoken like a true southerner.

There's not supposed to be carbon dioxide in beer is there?

[Alaric]

Watford Gap Services.......I thought everyone knew that.

I have this distant memory that it used to be "the North starts at Watford" rather than Watford Gap. That was before Milton Keynes though.

In the 1970s there was a band named "Hatfield and the North" taking inspiration from road signs in North London as well as "Gerry and the Pacemakers" etc.

[jfgw]

The North: Where beer is cheaper per pint but you get two-thirds of a pint of flat, lifeless beer and a third of a pint of foam.

The South: Where beer is dearer but you get a full pint and the carbon dioxide is still in the beer where it belongs, not floating in a pile of bubbles on the top.


Julian F. G. W.

There's not supposed to be carbon dioxide in beer is there?

Real ale should contain about the same volume of carbon dioxide as liquid. When yeast converts sugar into alcohol, it flatulates carbon dioxide which dissolves in the beer. The correct amount of carbon dioxide is dissolved at 13 degrees C with a partial pressure of one atmosphere. A cask which has not been spiled may be under much more pressure than one atmosphere so, when the cask is spiled and tapped, the beer will be excessively lively. As the beer is dispensed, air enters the cask and the partial pressure of the carbon dioxide drops. This can result in the beer going flat if the overall pressure isn't increased by hard spiling. (This is my understanding, I am not a cellarman.)

Using a sparkler knocks carbon dioxide out of the beer. It is like shaking a bottle of fizzy drink before opening it. While I am not an expert in such matters, it would make sense to me that the partial pressure, hence the carbon dioxide concentration, would need to be maintained at a much higher level where a sparkler is used so that an acceptable amount remains in the beer after it is dispensed.

Julian F. G. W.

[simsqu]

[
Real ale should...
Julian F. G. W.

There is really no good way to continue this thought other than to say "...should be banned from the planet on the grounds that it all smells like sewage runoff and tastes like fetid yellow fever-infested swampwater swarming with mosquitoes"

give me an ice cold clean-tasting glass of a light European lager any day: Amstel by choice

[redsturgeon]

give me an ice cold clean-tasting glass of a light European lager any day: Amstel by choice

No, no, no no!

On my weekly poker night in our local, my six friends all drink lager while I partake of one of a choice of five or six locally brewed craft beers, including the pub's own brews (brewed by an ex brewer from Siren brewery). There will be up to four tapped straight from the casks at the rear of the bar (under cooling mats) and another two or three hand pumped from the cellar. The are some fantastic and varied brews every week.

Of the lager drinkers, one drinks Peroni, one Kronenburg and three drink Amstel because it's the cheapest and they have the palates of a gila monster that has not had a drink for two years! (One particularly perverted individual has something called "a top" in his...ugh)

FWIW real craft beers can be brewed anywhere, North or South.

John