Hate is far too strong a word for this, but really wasn't that impressed with Dublin. Very expensive for one, and I don't know, it didn't feel very welcoming. Stayed away from the city centre when got off the plane as it was late on we arrived but the best looking bits of the city we went through looked like they were near some of the Gaelic football grounds.
Might just be me but I dunno, didn't really "get it".
Manchester is a strange one (city I mean, not shout). Even the quote on quote "trendy Northern Quarter" as it is constantly referred to seems to back out onto some pretty horrid areas despite there actually being some alright bars and places to eat there. It constantly lives up to the rainy stereotype to boot and has absolutely NO defining skyline whatsoever (brother works there in town planning and housing and they were showing the "Manchester Skyline" in a feature in the MEN about it being 15 years since the IRA bomb and it was as vacuous as Everton's trophy cabinet aside from that building that looks like a playstation 2) whereas Liverpool just looks incredible at times, say looking from the Dock Road or down from the top of Hardman Street. There's just nowhere "nice" to sit about in Manchester until you get to Fallowfield/Withington way and even that has the IDIOTS handing out those student flyers that litter up the place.
I've been lucky in that I've not lived there because I'd probably see the depravation and poverty about much more if I did, but I've always thoroughly enjoyed going to London. Makes a difference if you're staying in nice places and having a laugh though mind, and you obviously see glimpses (someone seemingly got knifed outside the strip club underneath my mate's house while we were being "asked to leave" because she naively got her massive indie kid camera out like a fucking balloon the other week) but it is undoubtedly a very exciting place to be.
Two oddest shouts on here are definitely Berlin and Newcastle for me. Both boss.
