I've never understood why Manchester was never in the mix,
In the mix for what? Airport expansion in the SE?
I'm in Ealing and you hardly hear aircraft on Westerlies and even on Easterlies we're only overflown by a third or so of departures - plus modern aircraft are so much quieter than before. I'm never bothered by aircraft noise
Seeing these poor things on the news complaining about noise from the almost silent A380's it does make me wonder how I ever coped living in Slough in the 80's with the Tridents and Concorde. I really don't remember it being a problem or anybody complaining. This was probably long before many of these people chose to move near a major airport.