Very funny and well-observed - particularly for a Northener like me.

I particularly liked his description of Durham City: "If Durham were in Kent or Sussex we would never hear the last of it. Every foreign visitor to these shores would salivate over its dreaming spires and punts and misericords and blue-stockinged girls on bicycles. ‘Dur-Ham’ would be said like ‘Boiled Ham’ by men in shorts from Boise, Idaho". I suspect he's right: it's a long way from London and it's not on the tourist routes to anywhere else except Edinburgh, so people don't think to break their journeys there in spite of the fact that it contains the finest Romanesque cathedral on the planet.

Not too sure about the bicycles, though: Durham is notoriously hilly and most people walk rather than cycle.

Great perception - not good to read at one hit. Better enjoyed for me, if dipped into from time to time. As a Northerner, the book celebrates so many of the special traits which I remember embarassing me when I was young striving to be cosmopoitan, but which delight and amuse now. Questionable musical taste though. ( )

I had a chicken tikka pastie from Hampsons, which used to be Parker Bradburns, today. It was delicious and it got me thinking about this book. Stuart Maconie goes on about Greggs pie shops all the way through this book. He is very very wrong about Greggs. Their pies and pasties are nowhere near as tasty as the ones from Hampsons or Greenhalghs. And everytime I buy a pasty from Greggs it is cold. And Hampsons have a bigger choice. And Hampsons have nicer cakes. But it annoys me when you buy a loaf in Hampsons and ask for it to be sliced thick but they can only slice it medium. I want my toast thick but I can't cut it myself, I'm not allowed near knifes anymore. People get hurt and it's not my fault. ( )

Now that was fun, although the radicalism was perhaps a bit overdone. Well written and funny, Has sent me in search of a food of my childhood - Staffordshire oatcakes - found an online supplier of both fresh oatcakes, which I think are a bit too perishable to trust Royal Mail to get to deepest Argyll in a decent condition, and more usefully oatcake and pikelet (yum) mix. ( )

Hilarious, observant, friendly; Maconie is the Bill Bryson of The North. This is a personal travelogue of a northener in exile, visiting cities from Liverpool and Manchester, to the Lakes and Hadrian's Wall, and gushing with praise over most. It's his honesty and familiarity that I enjoyed most, however - even a generation or two removed from Maconie's experiences, certain traditions (dinner is at midday, and supper is a cup of tea and biscuits in your dressing gown at night) and traits (talking to his parents on the telephone) were instantly recognisable to me. I enjoyed reading, quoting and recommending this book, and it's made me proud to be a northerner! ( )