Today’s book is supposed to have it, according to The Independent, whose complimentary review is quoted on the cover of this Manchester Compendium.

I live in the North; I have lived in the South, so I should be able to tell you what Dry Northern Wit is – and I can’t. I’m therefore going to conclude that the reviewer had stopped thinking at this point and came up with an unexceptional stereotype of four convenient syllables to balance and end this sentence, which had started rather well:

A superb work of in-depth research and dry Northern wit.

When I put the question to Google, it indicated that Northern Nigeria had a dry season with…, something about dry cleaning in Northern Sydney, and women with dry ear wax in Northern China all of these undoubtably more interesting than what I assume to be an empty cliché about the North…