It often comes as a surprise to media colleagues in London that I live in the north-west of England. “Ah, do you teach at a university up there?”, they ask, as if there could be no other reason why you might want to live outside the south-east. “No,” I say. “I live here because it’s brilliant and I love it.” After the tumbleweed, there comes the follow-up: “Well, I suppose you can buy a house up there, at least.”

Maybe this happens at The Guardian but this is an almost /r/thatHappened level of conversation, completely with the witty retort. Surprised everyone doesn't clap though.

People do indeed have stereotypes of the North, such as treating it as a monolithic bloc, but the North also appears to have some misconceptions of the South and Londoners especially. Although I agree on average that Northerners know the south better than southerners know the north we're not the complete idiots Northern newspaper columnists seem to imagine we are. We know people like living in the North, we know there are places that are unimaginably amazing in the North, many of us imagine different lives in which we're living in a bigger house in a smaller town with less pollution and more green spaces. Most of all we're acutely aware of the issue of house prices.

The idea we're all completely obvious to any of this until a quick-witted Northerner makes a quip is hard to believe. Maybe she should expand past her own bubble of 'media colleagues' and talk to young adults living in flatshares, people living up in densely packed estates or pretty much anyone earning south of 60-70k.