In message
, at
02:49:26 on Sun, 1 Aug 2010, MIG remarked:

I was particularly pleased to see the 'Romford is/is not in Essex'
argument being brought up immediately in the comments.

Having been brought up in the vicinity, I'd say that all of those were
in Essex, as is [ObLRT:] Upminster and Epping.

This change will finally sort out a couple of villages in the south
Chilterns which are physically in Bucks, but with a Henley (Oxon)
address, and a Reading (Berks) Postcode!

"Physically"?

As in... the county boundary on the map.

All these boundaries are administrative for one purpose
or another. (Although for some reason people seem to think that past
administrative boundaries are "real" and current ones are not.)

I'm not aware that the Bucks/Oxon border has changed very recently, in
that vicinity (other bits of Oxon border have changed in my lifetime).

The objections to the proposed change seem to come from people who
haven't cottoned on that their postal address is not meant to be a
description of where they live,

"Where you live" does have an effect on services provided by the
relevant councils, and hence on one's lifestyle. Planning and Education,
for example, can vary quite dramatically across a country border.

but is a structured entry in a record of delivery points. It can have
whatever fields in it the owner of the record wants to store.

Addresses, however, come with lots of baggage. I once lived in a village
several miles inside south Cambridgeshire. But the postcode was
associated with Royston "Herts". As a result many providers of services
would insist it was their (eg) Stevenage branch which I should be
talking to, not the one much nearer (demographically as well as
physically) in Cambridge.

The worst was online estate agents, who in effect created a no-mans land
of houses that would not show up in a search when people expected
results from the southern fringe of Cambridge, but were also way outside
the area that anyone looking for a house in Stevenage would be
interested in.
--
Roland Perry