"Epetruk" wrote in message
...
Nick wrote:

London heritage??? We have been part of Kent for generations, and
only sucked into the Greater London experiment so the Tories could
take control of London government (well, mostly). I am sure the
overwhelming majority of residents in Bexley describe, and want to
describe themselves as living in Kent (me included). Maybe those of
us in metropolitan Kent will one day escape from the clutches of
central London and determine our own affairs without inteference.

I loathe Bexley being described as "south London", it really is NOT.
We are part of the Greater London administrative area, that's all,
for all other purposes we are people of Kent. I know "Londoners"
find this hard to believe, but many of us don't wanty to be part of
your high-density overpopulated sprawling urban gloom.

So... which is more reliable in determining where a place is located - a
postcode county system which isn't even required to be used by the Royal
Mail, or the county that administers the borough?

I mean, nobody seriously argues that Bordeaux is in the UK.

Postal counties are pretty well established, based largely on administrative
counties of some decades past. People, not surprisingly, quote where they
live as where they are addressed, hence people in Bexley say they live in
Kent as that's what they usually quote as their address.

Describing locations by administrative areas, particularly as they seem to
change so relatively frequently in the UK, makes no sense to me, though this
seems increasingly common.

Plus, I don't understand why the "Greater" is being lost from "Greater
London". Greater London, to me, means real London plus lots of fringe areas
that aren't really "London" but close enough to be administered by it.
However, organisations such as BBC London appear to ban the phrase unless
it's in a name of an actual body, eg the GLA.

Nick
Bexley, Kent