Still Grim (and Ultra-Violent) Up North
Scientists who compared English hospital admission records by region suggested this week that many northerners (people from Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle etc) are using ‘violence as a means to establish a strong masculine identity’.
The new report discovered that people in the North are more than twice as likely as Southerners to attend an emergency room following a result violence-related injury, with serious injuries most common throughout the country in May and June. (Daily Telegraph)
The findings matched those of a study of violence in Britain in 2008 which revealed that North Manchester was then the most dangerous place in England, followed by Sheffield, Southampton and Central London (City Of Westminster).
Manchester music legend John Foxx chatted about the city’s notoriously tough underbelly in an interview with Skrufff one year previously, admitting ‘I love Manchester just as much as I fear it.’
“Louis and I mastered our first recordings watching kids set fire to the factories every day in Ancoats, five minutes walk from the lovely new city centre,” he recalled (referring to his production partner Louis Gordon).
“Louis recently legged it (ran away) from his glorious sink suburb, where there are no buses in or out after 7pm, the kids burnt the only fast food joint and the sole surviving landlord left town after a death threat,” he continued.
“What finally decided Louis was his brother getting stabbed as he watched TV in his own home one night, then one of his mates being casually shot in the spleen at a traffic light (mistaken identity). Still, it’s always very friendly there,” John added.
