Recently, to the embarrassment of Tory leader David Cameron, a Conservative think tank concluded that the north of England has no raison d’être, and northerners should move to the south.

As a northerner who did move to the south, I can see both sides. Lancastrians have never needed a raison d’être or anything else of a French and effeminate nature. Stick your raison d’être on your barm cake and munch it. A cup of tea and a bag of chips are worth all the raisons d’être in the world. That said, I am heading off up north for a short while, and feel it incumbent upon me to bring a touch of metropolitan sophistication into those bemerded northern lives. So I’ve packed a goody bag of fancy French frivol for distribution. It contains the following:

Raison d’être
Esprit d’escalier (I’ll go t’ top of our stairs.)
Nostalgie de la boue (boue bloody hoo)
Ostalgie de la boue (for the clever buggers)
Léger de main (thought I’d slip that one in)
Je ne sais quoi (God knows what that is)
Coup de grâce (a lawnmower)

My load’s getting bigger. At this rate I’ll need to hire a man with a van, or, as the French say, coq au vin.

Onyroad ooop (= be that as it may), very light posting for a bit. Back soon.