A faraway country of which we know nothing

The lands to the North of Badgertown are, indeed, a desolate place.

They were once the centre of an industrial revolution. There were mill towns, textile centres, shipyards, and mining towns.

However, now that the economic centre has moved to the Southern areas around Badgertown there are large, sparsely inhabited, areas.

The Northern nether regions of Badgertown are almost a separate country to the Southern environs, one of the main causes being the migration of young professional badgers from the north to work in Badgertown itself.

The Northern badgers are a strange folk - they live in rows of terraced burrows, wear flat caps, race pigeons and play brass musical instruments.

There has been much furore, in the region, over the King of the Badgers decision to grant a license to the Badfort Crowd to use hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to recover gas and oil from shale rock.

For this purpose they have recruited a number of dwarfs (experts in the process) to carry out exploratory drilling.

However, the drill site in has been the scene of anti-fracking protests for the past week, with demonstrators facing off against Beaver Hateman over the controversial technique.

Mister Hateman chucked a bucket of water over them shouting "The North is a right old dump! You should be bloomin grateful - ain't I promised to donate to setting up some whippet and pigeon clubs for you lot? what more you want?"