TOPIC OF AN ESSAY I DON'T WANT TO WASTE MY TIME ON... Sorry for bringing up the Capital I will be brief -- it is because so much of Northern writing sets itself against the capital even when the capital goes unnamed -- This is what is happening when the simplicity of Northerners is baselessly insisted upon -- I think of Manchester's longstanding unofficial motto -- "We do things differently here" -- and its implications: that Manchester, self-anointed bastion of Northern English identity, is inherently different from other cities (dubious); that things have been done differently there for some time (?); that Northerners are 'doers', i.e. not like those ponce-philosophers down South -- so, something to denigrate the North so London might appear pedestalled, which gives us a reason to hate it, and so spite from a lowly position becomes cause for a smug sense of superiority