by Shaun Wing

Created on: March 02, 2010   Last Updated: March 04, 2010

A recent survey has published that 169 countries in the world are less pleasurable to reside than good old Blighty, and so, I feel a tinge of excitement that Britain has done something right. I wasn't asked to throw in my two pennies worth, but if I was asked, I would say:- "It comes down to patriotism and the evolving door of foreign nationals that has diluted the raw burst of British pride that made Britain 'Great."

Family members have often, perhaps too often told me about the 'gruff bulldog spirit' that supposedly walked these shores on a 'full english breakfast' with grit and purpose like soldiers and workhorses fighting for the same cause. No time for tea breaks and just about enough time to roll-up a woodbine. This is all I can recount before I nod off, usually.

Those were the days when sweat and toil determined whether you could go home or not; compared to the soft-handed, computer hugger, British worker who barely loses any moisture from hard graft, since the days of Douglas Hurd's Mister Whippy haircut was fashionable. What has shaped our British cities has been the over sized lobes of the financial sector in London, leaving the huge manufacturing cities such as Sheffield, Hull, Bradford, Newcastle, Leeds, Chatham, inferior to the deep pockets of London's clammy palmed leeches. Investment is not an option for these century old corporations who practically invented the word 'sweat' and 'toil' and 'bread winner'. The most recent demise of 'Corus' is heart shattering; Teeside, has lost a major recruiter and source of income for nearly two thousand employees. Social clubs and small businesses will go under due to the Corus plant closure. It wasn't anything to do with having no clients, or taking the manufacturing material overseas, it was all to do with 'greed', the filthy rich CEO's who saw pound signs.

The unions were powerless, even after pleas from the unions to Westminster,they were abandoned, like a fighting fit, middle aged cat, sent to China, never to be seen again. Teeside, has a huge void to fill, a chasm more to the point. You can't make 'Steel Makers' into 'Financial, 'Yes men, pen pushers!' They're too honest and use to real graft and real ale, not like what you get down 't South', where all is not what it seems; like 'Pukka pies,' more air than proper meat. No wonder the South has gone 'veggie.'

Broadband and the internet to these social groups, are a means to an end while the lass popped off 't Bingo' on a Thursday night. These

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