A FRIEND is in the Algarve, and you’ve been entrusted with the care of their Northerner. Here’s how to ensure he remains healthily gruff and bitter-supping:
Prepare suitable accommodation
Contrary to popular supposition, Northerners do not sleep outside. Instead prepare a room with two bunk-beds and a bucket to urinate in, the outside lavatory being too far up the ginnel. Provide a mattress of cobbled linoleum, a tarpaulin and a sack of coal for a pillow. Ensure there are no holes in the sackcloth to arouse carnal temptation.
Feed and water him
Northerners require only three food groups: tea, beer and scran. The first two must be strong and the second served with a choice of red and brown sauces. Fish, chips, fish-and-chips, brawn, scouse and hotpot are all options for meals, as are 12 frozen Iceland Chicken Kievs.
Keep him cold
Hot weather is challenging for the Northerner by reminding him the sky exists. Keep in a small, draughty yard with pigeons, scrubbed daily by a woman in rollers. Hose down with rain every other hour.
Exercise him
Exercise for its own sake is ‘bloody daft’. Instead ride him up a steep cobbled street on a rickety bike at sunrise to deliver a loaf of bread and a quart of goose fat. He may also attempt to mine, which it is wise to allow as stopping him could result in strikes.
Avoid injury
In no circumstances take your Northerner to a hospital, even if he’s lost a limb. He does not ‘hold with’ hospitals. Instead, administer first aid at the scene by disinfecting the wound with tea and bandaging with the shirt sleeve that isn’t used to wipe the nose.
Avoid contact with strangers
Northerners are chatty when roused so be cautious in exposing him to others. Tales of being belted by parents and brawling with livestock are unsuited to company. Under no circumstances allow your Northerner to come into contact with a neighbour’s Northerner or they will instinctively build a den.
Hide sophistication
When asked why you are drinking Vimto out of a puff’s glass, do not explain to your Northerner it is Merlot. That knowledge will confuse him and may infect him with aspirations. Keep him proudly humble. Allowing him to develop a taste for lattes will see him trampled to death in a factory queue by his peers or exiled to moorland.
