[-Blue Moon-]

While trying to get the tickets for Liverpool v Arsenal from my friend who (after an 8 year wait) has an Arsenal season ticket I hit a spot of trouble. Unfortunately he could only get me one in the Arsenal end, and my girlfriend is sadly a Liverpool supporter, so I decided I'd give the Liverpool box-office a call and sit in the Scouse end. He suggested that if I had a few beers, called up, talked angrily and acted like the world owed me a favour they'd probably believe I was a Liverpool supporter and give me a ticket. I laughed. :-)

I gotta admit I had good fun on Dec 26th confusing the scouser on the phoneline box office into thinking I was a member of the Liverpool supporters' club depsite being an Arsenal supporter with a strong London accent (go me). But I decided against taking my friend's advice ;-P

So on Saturday I'm headed to Liverpool to see Arsenal play away at Anfield.
but it's just dawned on me today...

Damn it... I need to go to Liverpool now :-/

Like my friend, as a Southerner I've been brought up with the ringing of 'Dirty Northerners' in my ears (despite now living just outside Blackpool which is, in fairness, probably further North than Manchester), and I know that many northerners dislike the 'southern faeries'.... still, I wonder why I'm like this (as a southerner)?

In my youth I'd been instilled with the beliefs that scousers have a justifiable bad name because of their reputation of stealing, the often incomprihensible accents, high crime rates reported by the news and those damn 118-118 adverts with those chav idiots in trackies with their ridiculous affros....

It's been drilled into me not to trust those 'thieving scousers' but come to think of it, outside of Merseyside, you'll notice you never see scousers working in banks... I guess some people are weary of leaving their money with them (because of the stealing part again).

And to be fair, whenever you talk to a phone operator you realise that it's never a scouser, but more likely Indian. I'm not sure but is that because we can understand the Indian accent better than the Scouse accent? The way we talk differently probably adds fuel to the North-South divide. A good example being a Scouse friend of mine who has a book of 'scouser phrases' and apparently "i'll mug ya!" means "i'll help you"

Anyway, when I ordered my tickets (I can't believe I'm about to admit this) but I actually wondered if it was legitimate, and anxiously awaited the tickets as they took their time getting to me in the mail.

So, Saturday I'm in Liverpool and my Arsenal shirt will have to stay at home. I'll take a train down from Blackpool, have a few drinks in a Liverpool filled bar and try to act as if the world owes me a favour. I'll try not to laugh if I see some 'chavtastic' youths and I'll try my damned hardest not to cheer when Arsenal score (well, fingers crossed eh?) and most importantly...... I'll keep a close eye on my wallet at all times.... ;-)

I guess I'm not ready to change. But hey, I wondered if I'm the only one who's, for one reason or another, currently subscribing to the North-South divide?

Thoughts?