Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie

Stuart Maconie is well known these days as a DJ on Radio 2 and a "talking head" on many TV shows which involve lists, such as the 100 best love songs or whatever idea Channel 4 has to fill the schedule cheaply on a Saturday night. He used to write for the NME and Q magazine and seems to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of music and popular culture. He hails from Wigan, a town he describes as hopelessly "hick" and one which seems to instil a great ...
...Amazon last year and mentioned my late husband's mirth and delight at travelling through Wigan North Western railway station, something I failed to understand. To me Wigan meant the Verve, George Orwell, Uncle Joe's Mint Balls and Wallace and Gromit. Doesn't seem so bad to me. My husband was a Londoner and took a different view. In this book Maconie sets out to discover what the north of England is and what it means to those who live there. He starts ...

rosebud2001 22.06.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie

One does wonder if Stuart Maconie dreams up the titles for his books before he even knows what they'll be about. In his follow up to the my-life-with-music-cum-autobiography "Cider With Roadies" our erstwhile doyen of BBC Radio and music journalism ponders the most important questions of our time; does the North, and Northerners, still exist? And if they do, what the hell actually are they? (Well, they're important questions if, like the author ...
...Southern exile). Having gloriously dismissed the South even as a concept in the first chapter (while ironically professing a considerable degree of ignorance of it; mind you, basic ignorance never stopped the South dismissing the North, did it?), the book settles down to be a wry travelogue of a voyage round the North of England, its sights, sounds, people, and obviously its terribly unhealthy but startlingly wonderful food. And if nothing else, ...

greenierexyboy 28.10.2007 · Read full review
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Review of Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie

I should open this review by admitting a bias. I love the North of England, and I ordered this book to learn a little more about the history of the settlements and the culture. The writer clearly also loves the North, although I did find myself chuckling along with his comments on sceptics from the 'Great North' who would disagree with his chosen starting points (Crewe, Manchester, these places are surely the midlands!). He approaches each settlement ...
...background within the music industry was clear, and I did find myself at times skipping through pages and pages about the bands that have come from a place or where they played. I would have liked to see a little more on the history of a settlement, which where present was delivered in a humourous and understandable manner. The author was clearly in more familiar territory around Liverpool and Manchester, as these cities had thick chapters and an ...

Dinah93 20.10.2009 · Read full review
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Review of Pies and Prejudice: In Search of the North - Stuart Maconie