NORTHERN PLANNER

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What are we like?

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I'm in the middle of reading Pies and Prejudice by Stuart Maconie. Not only is it fun, he manages to get an incredible amount of detail into everything. Really worth looking at if you want to understand what people are like Up North – and if you're a planner in London, isn't that essential?

This book is pretty essential for anyone involved with communicating to the English. In 'Watching the English', Kate Fox, a 'proper' anthropologist, has looked at all aspects of English behaviour, from food rules to dress rules, from our houses to why we always talk about the weather. Much of planning is understanding why people behave as they do, this book gives you lots of hidden behaviours that will help.

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4 responses to “What are we like?”

  1. Mark Hadfield Avatar
    Mark Hadfield

    Cool – this is on my wishlist I think. Sounds good.
    I’m a northerner, but planning down South so I like to think I know how to munch on a pie but also sip a double-shot-double-dry-soya-latte like they do down here. Important to know both.
    It’s kinda what I think I was trying to get across here: http://markhadfield.typepad.com/that_gormandizer_man/2009/01/trusting-my-working-class-gut.html

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  2. Shib Avatar
    Shib

    I’ll be sure to check it out! I always find Peter Kay’s stand up’s are such a good insight into Northern behavior too 🙂

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  3. Andrew Robinson Avatar
    Andrew Robinson

    Hey,
    I was a bit disappointed when I read Pies and Prejudice. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit younger but it definitely didn’t feel like the working class north east where I grew up.
    Also, I got a 2nd hand copy of Watching the English on your recommendation and found it generally quite enlightening. It’s the first proper anthropology book I’d read so was quite interesting. I thought she focused too much on middle class people and her discussion of working class life was a bit idealised in my opinion, but on the whole was good. Also, the part on generational attitudes changing over time was just woeful. Her data wasn’t comparing like for like so trying to draw the kind of conclusions she did from it was almost criminal!
    Any other recommendations?

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  4. andrea n Avatar
    andrea n

    I’ve been reading Adventures on the High Teas on and off by the same guy…and probably Cider with the Roadies is in the same area as these two and I’m discovering things I knew but didn’t really know – kind of liking the feeling. Pies and Prejudice seemed too strange for me to begin with..

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