Turn Again Whittington

The old legend of Dick Whittington, cat in tow, legging it to London to seek fame and fortune is still as alive as ever.

These days young Dick is more likely to head south via National Coaches (crappest website in England or what! Oh - I forgot about Harry Ramsden's clunker) on that ten quid and change deal they've got going. "Get out of Leeds - it's cheaper than a round of drinks!!" And they wonder why folks go "OK, why not...Wotthehell!"

There's a scene in 'Trainspotting' that sums up the Dick Whittington syndrome. Begbie and Sickboy and Renton leg it to London to hide. To disappear off the radar. To be totally and completely unfindable.

In Yorkshire you do anything out of the ordinary and you get the gawp. Red and White hair?. Gawp. Daft hat? Gawp. Makeup? gawp. And that's just in the Ponty End at Oakwell or a trip down to Gatecrasher. (My gal's already violently disagreeing by the way...) And after a while the eyes get a little intrusive and you have to get out of town for a while. And there was that little matter of being caught sleeping with your best mate's girl...

So it's King's X/St Panks or good old Victoria Coach Station and you're in London, the strangest place in England. My gal's going "What's the point in going to London - It's full of Southerners!" and I'm saying it's not. It's full of foreigners, and other bored provincials trying to be cool.

Now I 've got to admit to doing the London thing. I'm not too proud of it, but it happened.

I really did the Dick Whittington thing. Army surplus kitbag, and a night coach out of Manchester. It stopped EVERYWHERE and I arrived in London totally frazzled and this cookie girl looking for a modeling contract I met on the journey down.

Nowhere to stay. And bugger all money. Ended up in some sleazy Paddington hotel in a smelly room full of fifteen other people. Streets paved with gold my backside.

But the place is WEIRD, man!

Unlike the sticks where you get stared at for being left handed or ginger haired NO-ONE pays you the slightest bit of attention. And it's not just bar assistants, or shop girls. It's bus conductors ( Free ride? Cool!) It's passers by. It's every co-passenger on the tube train.

Then you realize that you can do anything you damn well like - handstands in Harrods, Drop you kecks in Harvey Knicks or streak the length of Oxford Street and no one bats an eyelid. Some strango can beat you senseless, strip you naked and tattoo "Loser" on your forehead and that never ending stream of people will step right round you, or throw coins.

And the stats on kids doing the Dick Whittington thing are amazing.

Get this.

Yorkshire and Humber has 200,000 students attending nine universities with 40,000 graduating each year ( a whopping 10% of the UK total). A quarter of this lot walk out with science or techie degrees.

 Yorkshire and Humber has the lowest retention rate in the country with a net loss of 36% of its graduates who all bog off south on the first National Coach they can squeeze on to.

. The average starting salary for a graduate in Yorkshire is £17566, only £847 less than in London and it doesn't seem to make a blind bit of difference.

The deal is - the region attracts more students than any in the country, and yet also has the worst retention rate. Not good.

To try to halt this exodus our very own Quangle Wangle Yorkshire Forward has launched it's new Don't Bog Off to London We Love You Really site, which is actually very good. It's not nearly as funky as it think it is and features what looks like a grinning mum and dad act instead of proper grads. But it walks the walk, and for you student debters it's a damn good place to start the jobhunt thanks to a nifty deal they have sealed with the big job hunt sites, like Monster.com, Workthing and total jobs. They've got a link or two to turbo-slow local guides just to add a bit of cred if you've computer that doesn't mind waiting a week for applet navigation...

It seems a weird time to be trying to attract the dossing student types who left college months ago. If they were going they'll have gone by now, lads. I suppose this is for the Freshers Fairs and and the third year lot -who are finally coming to terms with the fact that they've a shedload of work to do if they want to get a decent grade. And it's all about gaining a bit of cred with the latest crop of swotters.

The site design is a total embarrassment of old gittery, and looks like a cheap bank site. An online version of your trendy uncle getting down and funky to
Dr Dre. But don't let that put you off. 70% of graduates look for their first job online, so getting something like this together is a smooth move. Poor buggers have a whopping student loan to pay off, so they've got to start somewhere.

On the other hand they could just be letting lose, getting laid and getting wrecked in a strange town. Good old fashioned fun!

Streets Paved with Gold. Sounds like a good lap dancing club name...where's Stringfeller's number gone...

Blogga.