Aye, i agree that Manchester is more central to the whole of the UK, its like 3 hours away from virtually all parts of England, except the furthest flung corners, Wales is only an hour or so away, Scotland does seem so far away though, i remember when i lived in mid wales and was at uni in sunderland what a fucking long journey that was, i keep saying i wanna revisit the scottish highlands and the extreme north, but it just seems so far away.
I do keep forgetting we are a tiny island in world terms, we can barely be seen compared to russia, china, australia, the usa etc, Alaska alone has 35,000 square miles of desolate glaciers and icy territory, the scale is just mind boggling.
Oh and a manchester meet up would probably mean id have all of 15 minutes to travel. I would imagine i could probably manage that.